there wouldn’t be a theme. it wouldn’t be carefully laid out. it would be chaotic. messy. disorganized. weeds would have crept into every available space. pots would be overturned, tools left laying on the side of a flowerbed, the sprinkler left on far too long, bags of potting soil torn open and half used.

if my grief grew a garden, this is what would be in it:

sunflowers, obviously. towering, mammoth ones with centers the size of an open palm. they’d loom over everything. bold. heavy. unavoidable. sometimes beautiful, sometimes too much. that’s how my grief feels—impossible to ignore, always just above me.

peonies. soft and lush, but packed tight with layers. they unfold slowly, if at all. delicate, but overwhelming. the kind of flower that makes you pause. my grief has layers, too. thick ones. hidden ones. petals stacked over pain.

creeping charlie. invasive. aggressive. clingy. it wraps itself around anything it can touch and chokes the life from everything near it. that’s how the worst days of grief feel—like they want to pull everything else down with them.

roses. thorny and nostalgic. a reminder that love can hurt. that beauty doesn’t mean safe.

black raspberries. their brambles twist into knots. the thorns catch skin and draw blood. and yet, they still offer sweetness. grief is like that too. messy. tangled. but sometimes there’s fruit.

forget-me-nots. small and unassuming. but bright. persistent. as if I could ever forget. as if forgetting were even possible.

comfrey. roots that dig ten feet down. it comes back even when cut down to nothing. it’s used for healing, supposedly. ironic that it shows up here—grief pretending to help while taking over everything.

sweet alyssum. low to the ground. easy to miss. soft and subtle. always there, even in the shadows of louder things. the quiet kind of grief that lingers in ordinary moments.

lavender. used to calm. sweet, but fragile and finicky. easily overwhelmed by too much water or not enough care

a tree stump. sawed down but still rooted. something big was here. something you can’t pull out, no matter how long it’s been.

dandelions. underestimated. unwanted. impossible to truly get rid of. they show up in the cracks. they spread their grief in the wind. no matter how many times you try to pull them, they come back.

moss. soft, but persistent. it grows in the dark. clings to stone. it doesn’t ask for light. the kind of grief that doesn’t scream—just stays.

compost. rot and decay. all the things that broke down. but maybe, eventually, something can grow from it.

and somewhere, buried under all of it, maybe there’s something trying to bloom. maybe there’s still a seed that hasn’t given up yet.

this garden isn’t pretty. it wasn’t planted with intention. but it grows anyway.