“Garden Sarah”: On friendship, loss, and the tasks that steady us
Ten weeks ago, I lost my dear friend, Rebecca, to stomach cancer. She was diagnosed in mid-August and she died just after Labor Day, leaving us in a state of shock that’s been hard to unwind. I had just finished packing her a box of silly magazines, stickers, and one of those watercolor books, thinking she’d have to deal with chemo for a while. I thought I’d be able to fly to Dallas and sit with her while she slept off the cancer. I figured we’d talk about our recent books and brainstorms, dream about travel plans, and I would sneak in a couple of our favorite chocolate bars. But nope. Cancer had damaged her liver, and she died just a few days into her treatment.
When I learned of her passing, I was planting a garden in Franklin with new clients. I had my phone in the front pocket of my overalls and after I read the text from her sister, I shook off the shock and dove into auto-pilot, tucking plants into their holes, sprinkling lettuce seeds into neat rows. I found cabbage moth eggs and called the new gardeners over, knowing that my teacher self would explain how a sharp eye and a bottle of BT can keep brassicas alive. At the end of the planting session, I drove away with my gloves still on, nervous to remove any of the layers that made the day feel normal.
Rebecca in June 2024, at a Lavender Farm in Albequerque
In the days that followed, I couldn’t explain the sadness. Rebecca had been a work friend who presented at education conferences with me around the U.S., and no one in Nashville had ever met her. Our friendship happened in small-town Hampton Inns, launching burpee competitions at the hotel gym and eating hummus and carrots for dinner because the only other option was Red Lobster. She was the kind of human that kept purple star-shaped sunglasses in her purse and roller blades in the trunk of her car, “you never know when an adventure might be more fun on wheels.” No one knew of our trail running conversations in New Mexico— how she had persuaded me to leave the corporate world and start Tennessee Kitchen Gardens. In her phone she dubbed me Garden Sarah, long before I had earned the title.
Unable to communicate the loss, I spent hours reading through our old texts and cards she sent me, staring at the words and searching for a message in them. The grief slowed me down. I gathered a few flowers for my desk each morning, not wanting to let my work erase her memory for the day. I thinned carrots, seeded radish, and picked the fall peppers with a sense of reverence. I shelled peas from dried pods, thankful for something to do with my hands while my heart heaved on.
Weeks after Rebecca’s death, I got an email out of the blue from a name I didn’t recognize — another friend of hers, living in Florida and looking for someone to talk to. The subject line read, Are you Garden Sarah?
Yep. That’s me. I’ll claim that identity whole-heartedly. I can imagine Rebecca greeting me happily when she answered my phone call.
It’s not lost on me that the garden reflects death and renewal, the seasons and their cycles. Maybe someday I’ll find solace in that idea, but for now, I’m not interested in metaphors. Rebecca’s absence is far sadder to me than the end of my basil, and I’m angry at what seems unfair. I wanted her to join Brian and me for dinner—she would have adored him. I wanted to take that trip to Croatia we planned. I’m not ready for a spring without her.
This fall, instead of flailing in those emotions, I lose myself in work that is ritualistic and simple: turning compost, gathering seeds from calendula plants, baking cherry tomatoes at 225, and breathing in the warm scent that lingers in the kitchen. There’s peace in these ordinary tasks—things that happen without much thought but somehow steady the day.
I’m grateful for readers who resonate with the life the garden offers us. May we remember joy when radishes sprout and not get lost in the absence of things. May we find rhythm in the garden when we lose our own beat.
