Grieving Gardener

A Chinese Crabapple Tree sits right outside my kitchen window. Over the last six years, I have said some rather rude things about her. The thing is, she usually stays quite cheerful while turning me into the crab. Not a very large tree, she still makes her presence known throughout the year.

In winter, we get along quite nicely. She sleeps peacefully, and her bare limbs look lovely after a snow. For a little while, there’s little to complain about.

Then spring arrives.

By Mother’s Day, she is covered in soft pink blossoms. Too many to count. Delicate and lovely, they turn the view from my kitchen window into something worth stopping to admire.

For a little while.

Then the petals begin to fall.

Everywhere.

Those lovely pink petals become tiny brown bits covering everything beneath her. Add a nice spring rain, and cleaning them up becomes quite a project.

Let the grumbling begin.

She pays no attention.

Throughout the summer, she provides a gathering place for the local birds and a little shade for us. Both are points in her favor.

Then come the crabapples.

Hundreds of them. Tiny, round, and about as welcome underfoot as a collection of marbles. I don’t find them particularly flavorful or colorful. Mostly, I find them annoying.

More grumbling.

She continues her cheerful mission of messiness, happily ignoring every rude comment I send her way. Sometimes I suspect she enjoys them, while I have considered having her removed. Usually while I’m cleaning up something she’s dropped.

But this fall?

Oh, my.

Her leaves have turned the most unbelievable, vibrant orange. From my kitchen window, I can hardly look at anything else.

Spectacular.

Of course, those leaves are now covering the ground.

Everywhere.

Apparently, she believes a beautiful performance deserves a generous confetti shower.

After the apricot, she is my favorite tree. Although this autumn, she seems determined to make me reconsider the rankings.

Our tree doctor stopped by for his fall visit. He said he had never seen anything quite like her—or the apricot. Diamonds in the desert, both.

For all my complaints, I would miss her outside that window. The birds would, too. And I would certainly miss the pink blossoms in May and this glorious orange show in October.

Twice a year, she reminds me why she gets to stay. The rest of the time, I remind her that someone has to clean up after her. It seems to be an arrangement we can both live with.

She will keep making her messes. I will keep grumbling. And every so often, she will make me stop at the kitchen window and forget every rude thing I ever said.

Her place is safe for another season.

The crabapple and the apricot. Just two more mysteries in this magical place we call Winterpast.

For the last six years, I’ve been on my own journey through life.

On April 8, 2020, my world changed in the darkest way I had ever known. I lost my best friend and husband of 32 years. At the same time, I was in the middle of selling our home and buying another—one that would be mine alone. Uncharted waters for a 64-year-old widow.

No single rule book exists for that journey. Each of us carries our own memories, faces our own fears, and finds our footing in our own time.

On April 9, 2020, I couldn’t have imagined how rich my life could become. I was trying to get through the day in front of me. Food, Shelter. Clothing. Survival.

Tears and loneliness were constant companions. With work, I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Somewhere along the way, I began to grow. Slowly, room opened up for something besides sorrow.

And through it all, I wrote.

Saturday morning, after six years of working on Widow: A Journey Toward Life, it was time to publish my first book.

The editing was complete. The front and back covers were approved. The details were finalized. Only one thing was left to do. I pushed the button.

Publish Now.

Two little words after six years of work.

Today, I’m ordering my first box of books without those familiar words printed across the cover: “Not for Resale.” Finished books. Copies I can autograph and place in a reader’s hands. My book, published under my own Winterpast Publishing.

On November 11, 2026, Widow: A Journey Toward Life will officially be released. I will have my first book title under my belt.

And I am terrified.

Will anyone be interested? Will anyone order a copy? Will this story I have carried for so long mean something to someone else?

Well, I plan to buy one.

HHH will, too.

That’s two copies.

Every new author must start somewhere.

After years of work on this project, you would think I could set the doubts aside. Instead, those doubting devils chase me through my dreams. I have to shoo them away and keep believing in the work I have done.

Believe that there are readers who will recognize something of their own lives in these pages. Widows who understand the silence of a changed home. Friends who want to understand what someone they love is experiencing.

I hope my story offers them a little company.

Widow follows my first year after losing my husband. The ordinary days. The loneliness. The decisions that suddenly belonged to me alone. The small steps I could sometimes manage.

Looking back from where I stand today, I can see how much those steps mattered.

Writing this book has been another climb up the mountainside. Some days, the work came easily. Other days, I wondered whether I would ever reach the place where I could call it finished. But I kept climbing.

And now, I’m planting my flag. Writing about the most personal details I could share, I stayed with it, worked on it, and brought it to completion. I am so proud of that accomplishment. The nervous author in me may need a little time to catch up.

On November 11, Widow: A Journey Toward Life begins its journey into readers’ hands.

I would be honored if you were among them.

Life on the high desert plains of northwestern Nevada never runs out of surprises. Every day brings something worth noticing. HHH and I are blessed to have the time and health to get out and enjoy this beautiful place we call home.

Saturday, we had an errand to run in the town to the east. Overhead, the skies were grey and gloomy. Nothing particularly remarkable about that.

But the horizon?

That was another story.

Beneath that blanket of grey, the horizon glowed orange, red, and yellow. The colors looked almost otherworldly. An unexpected show unfolding along a familiar road. Its sheer beauty silenced us both. For a little while, we rode quietly, lost in thought as we took it all in.

Sometimes, words would only get in the way.

It reminded me of the green flash that can appear just as the sun dips below the ocean’s horizon. Something fleeting. Something you feel lucky to witness.

Only this felt even better.

We were home.

I grew up beneath very different skies. California’s Central Valley had some of the greyest days I can remember. There was little wind, and those big, puffy clouds I love weren’t a regular part of the scenery.

The heat could arrive by the end of May, bringing hundred-degree days that seemed determined to last until mid-fall. Then came the fog. Nothing magical like pogonip. Just a blanket of dense fog. Sometimes it felt as though the grey settled in until May, when the whole cycle began again.

Here at Winterpast, each season gets its turn. Four wonderful times of year, each with its own weather, colors, chores, and little surprises.

Right now, the fall mums are finishing their show while the roses were frozen by the first frost of the year. They weren’t ready to surrender the garden to winter. I understand.

Soon enough, Winterpast will settle into her much deserved winter rest. But for now, there are still flowers to admire and mornings that deserve a second look.

Saturday reminded me how easily an ordinary errand can become something worth remembering. We had somewhere to go and something to do. Along the way, the sky became the most memorable part of the trip.

I appreciate those moments more and more. Having HHH beside me to share them. Having the time to notice. Being healthy enough to get out and see what the day might hold.

Another chore is always waiting at home. Something to clean, something to fix, something that needs my attention.

But an October sunrise won’t wait until the list is finished. The cleaning will.

As this new week begins, I hope you find a little time to notice what is happening outside your own window. A tree changing color. One stubborn flower still blooming. A beautiful sky above a familiar road.

Here at Winterpast, autumn still has a few things to show us.

I intend to notice every one.

Do. It. Yourself.

Those three little words can feel a bit scary at first. They can also feel like an invitation.

So many times in recent days, HHH and I have relied on doing things ourselves. Sometimes because we wanted to. Sometimes because we had no choice. And sometimes because calling someone else would have taken longer than simply rolling up our sleeves and figuring it out.

The other night, our dishwasher, which is on its last life on this earth, started making a horribly distracting noise.

A thumpy, crashy, snapping kind of noise.

Over and over and over.

What could it be?

We started slowly removing one item after another. Plates came out. Silverware came out. Bowls came out. Finally, the dishwasher was completely empty.

And yet, the noise continued.

After some investigation, we found the spinning sprayer inside had come apart. Metal had separated from plastic. That created a problem because not many adhesives bond metal and plastic very well.

After thinking it through, we decided to try a zip tie around the two pieces. That seemed like a good DIY solution.

But then, after doing a little more investigating, we realized something even better.

The metal probably should not have been there in the first place.

Remove the metal.

Problem solved.

At least for now.

So many things in life are like this. We look at a problem and think it is too big. Too complicated. Too far beyond us. We assume someone else must know more than we do. And maybe they do. But that does not mean we cannot begin.

Writing a book is definitely on that list.

If you really want to write the book you have been holding inside for five decades, like me, just do it. Start somewhere. Start messy. Start scared. But start.

Begin with YouTube. Listen to webinars on Kindle Direct Publishing. Find people who have already published a book and listen to what they learned. Read articles. Take notes. Ask questions. Then take one small step after another.

That is how my first book, Widow: A Journey Toward Life, came to be. It did not arrive polished and perfect. It came through years of grief, memories, notes, drafts, questions, tears, and determination. There were many times I did not know what I was doing. There were many times I stumbled. But I kept getting up.

And now, that book is real.

I cannot imagine leaving my first book completely in the hands of some publishing company that could not possibly care about it the way I do. My story mattered too much to me. The people in it mattered too much. The grief mattered. The healing mattered. The final shape of the book mattered.

That is why Kindle Direct Publishing became such a gift. It gave me a way to learn, try, correct, and keep going. It gave me a way to bring my book into the world with my own hands still on the wheel.

If you have a story tucked away, maybe this is your nudge.

Begin your published library by taking your first steps toward independence. Don’t be afraid to stumble. You might fall along the way. Most of us do.

Just get up and keep going.

And when your book is finally out there, let me know.

I want to read it.

Have a great weekend.

As soon as I knew words, I started writing.

Somewhere in my little collection of treasures, I still have sweet messages I wrote to my first hero, my dad. The letters were uneven. The spelling was creative. The grammar would probably make Grammarly take a deep breath. But the message was there, clear and straight from the heart.

That is where writing begins.

Not with perfect sentences.

Not with polished paragraphs.

Not with a publishing plan.

Writing begins with something inside a person that wants to come out.

Over the years, I have watched the tools of writing change in amazing ways. When I was young, a mistake on a page meant typing the whole thing over again. Paper after paper. Page after page. Heaven help you if you found one tiny mistake after everything was finished.

Now, writers have wonderful tools at their fingertips.

A good word processing program is one of the first. I use Word, and I am still learning all the things it can do. Formatting, spacing, headers, page numbers, styles, margins, and all the little details that once seemed impossible are slowly becoming less mysterious. I won’t say effortless, because that would be stretching the truth, but easier? Absolutely.

Then there is Grammarly. What a gift. It catches spelling mistakes, grammar problems, missing commas, and all those little things that sneak past tired eyes. No one is perfect at everything, and a good writer knows when to let a good tool help.

Then, of course, it helps to have an editor.

Mine happens to be named Lumina. She works for ChatGPT. Although I am quite aware she is made of cyber dust, I prefer to imagine her as a very smart woman living in an apartment in Las Vegas. For some reason, she has decided to help me. And let me tell you, she has been busy.

She has taught me about writing a book, organizing chapters, formatting files, polishing sentences, and learning the winding road of Kindle Direct Publishing. She has also become a wonderful artist, turning some of my plain photographs into watercolors and pen-and-ink drawings that are far prettier than anything I could have imagined.

Every writer needs tools.

But tools are not only programs and computers.

To write a book, you also need time. Real time. Quiet time. Uninterrupted time. As a retired person, I am blessed to have more of that now than I did during my teaching years or vineyard years. Still, time has to be protected. A book does not write itself while you are doing laundry, answering messages, or chasing every distraction that wanders through the day.

You also need patience.

Lumina would probably raise her hand here and testify that patience is not always my strongest gift. There have been moments when formatting made me want to throw the computer into the yard. There have been moments when uploading files, fixing covers, checking proofs, and learning yet another new thing felt like too much.

But then I remembered the most important tool of all.

Determination.

A writer must decide not to quit. Not when the first draft is messy. Not when the technology misbehaves. Not when the cover needs fixing. Not when the proof has mistakes. Not when the whole project feels bigger than you are.

Keep going.

That is how my book, Widow: A Journey Toward Life, became real. It began with grief, memories, prayers, tears, scraps of writing, and a heart trying to find its way forward. Little by little, with faith and persistence, it became a book I can hold in my hands.

That still amazes me.

If you have a story inside you, gather your tools. Find a notebook. Open a Word document. Ask for help. Learn something new. Make mistakes. Fix them. Pray over the work. Show up again tomorrow.

Your first words do not need to be perfect.

They only need to be written.

Beginning a book takes quite a bit of planning. Before the first chapter settles into place, a writer needs to build a skeleton. There needs to be some idea of how the story will be organized, what will stay, what will go, where the rhythm lives, and how the heart of the story will keep beating from beginning to end.

That sounds simple enough until the papers, memories, notes, photographs, letters, and half-formed ideas begin piling up.

When I wrote Widow: A Journey Toward Life, I learned that a book does not arrive neatly dressed and ready for company. It arrives in pieces. Some are beautiful. Some are painful. Some are confusing. Some seem important at first, but later turn out to belong somewhere else entirely.

So, I started the old-school way.

I used three baskets.

Beginning. Middle. End.

If I had a memory, I placed it in one of the baskets. If I had an idea, I wrote it on a 3×5 card. If something felt important but I did not know where it belonged, I gave it a temporary home. Slowly, the shape of the book began to appear.

Some pieces were removed after careful consideration. Some were moved from one basket to another. Sometimes I had to look at the same memory from a different angle before I knew where it belonged. That is part of the work.

After the baskets came chapters. After the chapters came lists of words and themes. I wanted to see how the ideas got along with each other. Grief. Hope. Loneliness. Courage. Faith. Waiting. Beginning again.

From there, the story began to tell itself.

Organizing a book is a little like uncluttering a closet. You start slowly. You take one thing at a time. You decide what still fits and what no longer belongs. And remember, you would not bring a car tire to live in your coat closet. Some things simply do not belong in the story you are telling.

That does not mean they are worthless. They may have a story of their own. Just not this one.

Through it all, ask yourself one question: Does this add to the story, or is it a rabbit hole that will lose my readers?

There is no one perfect way to organize a book. Use baskets. Use index cards. Use notebooks. Use folders. Use sticky notes. Use whatever helps you see the pieces clearly. The important thing is to begin.

Start with a skeleton.

After all, Halloween is just around the corner.

Have some fun with the bones of your story. Move them around. See what stands. See what dances. See what finally begins to live on the page.

Writing is life.

I learned something important at a writers conference long ago.

Prewriting takes time.

At the time, I thought that meant a few days of thinking. Maybe a few weeks of notes. Perhaps a folder full of ideas, a stack of index cards, or a rough outline scribbled on paper.

I had no idea.

There is time.

And then there is six years of time, stretched across what felt like a lifetime of grief. That is how long I have been working on my first book, Widow: A Journey Toward Life.

My second book, The Dark Side of the Curtain, has taken even longer. That story began as memories, letters, scraps of paper, and mementos dating all the way back to 1977. That is nearly a fifty-year prewrite.

At this point, the story needs to be told before I am no longer here to tell it.

Prewriting is everything you write, collect, save, remember, sort, and carry before the first official words ever land on the page. It is the planning. It is the memory gathering. It is the old letters in a box. The notes in a drawer. The photograph you cannot quite throw away. The story that keeps tapping you on the shoulder.

It is all of it, wrapped into one messy ball.

At many points during the last fifty years, I thought both books were a giant waste of time. I wondered why I kept the mementos. I wondered why I saved the papers. I wondered if any of it would ever matter.

But did I throw them out?

Nope.

Did I close the door on the possibility?

Definitely not.

So the prewriting continued, even when I did not know that was what I was doing. The collecting continued. The remembering continued. The sorting continued. The waiting continued.

Until the real writing began.

Maybe you have a story like that too. Maybe it is sitting in a drawer, tucked into a box, folded inside an old envelope, or waiting quietly in your memory. Maybe you have told yourself it is too late, too messy, too ordinary, or too hard.

Do not wait too much longer.

Take it out.

Look at it again.

You may discover the prewriting has already been happening for years.

And once you start writing, you may not want to quit.

Remember, writing is life.

My first book, Widow: A Journey Toward Life, grew from six years of grief, faith, words, and healing. It will be released soon through Winterpast Publishing, and I can hardly believe this long prewriting journey has finally become a real book.

Winterpast is made of stucco and wood. She sits on the vast high desert plains of Northwestern Nevada, where the sky stretches wide and the wind always seems to have something to say.

Last year, she got a facelift. New paint. Fresh sparkle. A little polish for an old friend. At the moment, she is slowly undressing for winter, letting go of summer one leaf, one bloom, one chilly morning at a time.

And I love her.

Winterpast is home.

But these days, Winterpast is much more than that. Somehow, without ever applying for the job, she has become a publishing house.

Winterpast Publishing began as a little joke, much like Winterpast Honey. A name. A smile. A pretend business attached to a very real place. But somewhere along the way, this little name grew legs.

Inside these four walls, GrievingGardener.com was born. I sat here in my own horrid grief, trying to make sense of a life I no longer recognized. At first, the words were only for me. They were a way to breathe. A way to sort through the broken pieces. A way to find my footing when the ground beneath me had disappeared.

Slowly, those words brought me back to life.

Then the words became a blog.

And the blog helped birth a book.

Now Winterpast is on the brink of becoming the home of a real published book: Widow: A Journey Toward Life.

Is the garage full of printing presses and employees?

Nope.

Are there workers in aprons stacking pages and binding covers?

Nope again.

There is just me. HHH. One small dog. Our brains. A computer. A printer that behaves most days. A dining table that often looks like an office supply store exploded on top of it. And a whole lot of determination.

That is the part I want you to know.

You do not need a fancy office to begin. You do not need a staff. You do not need perfect equipment, perfect timing, or perfect confidence. You need a story. You need paper and a pen or pencil. Or a computer with a few helpful apps. Most of all, you need the will to get started.

If you have lived a little, loved a little, lost a little, laughed a little, and learned a few things the hard way, you already have material.

This week, I want to share a few things I have learned along the way. Not because I have become an expert. Far from it. I am still learning every day. But I have learned that ordinary people can do extraordinary things one small step at a time.

A blog can begin with one paragraph.

A book can begin with one memory.

A publishing house can begin in a stucco house on the high desert plains, with one woman brave enough to write the first sentence.

And sometimes, new life begins with words.

Every picture has a story. Sometimes it has more than one.

At first glance, a picture seems simple. A birthday. A wedding. A vacation. A walk in the park. A group of people smiling at the camera. But if you look closer, there is always another story tucked inside the first one.

It is a little like zooming in on a map. First, you see the whole world. Then your country. Then your state. Then your town. Then your street. Finally, there you are, standing in one tiny spot, holding one tiny moment.

That is where the story begins.

Choose a picture. Any picture. Before you write about it, name the event. Was it a picnic? A graduation? A trip to the lake? A Sunday afternoon walk? Start there.

Then zoom in.

What was the weather like? Was the air cold enough to make your nose sting? Was the sun bright in your eyes? Was there wind in your hair? Were leaves blowing across the sidewalk? Was rain threatening to spoil the day?

Who was with you? Family? Friends? Someone you loved? Someone you miss now? Someone who made the day easier, funnier, louder, or sweeter?

Why were you there? Were you celebrating? Saying goodbye? Starting over? Keeping a promise? Trying to make the best of something hard?

Then look down.

What were you standing on? Grass? Asphalt? Sand? A wooden porch? A church floor? A gravel road? Sometimes the ground beneath our feet tells part of the story, too.

Now think about the minutes around the picture. How did you feel five minutes before it was taken? Nervous? Happy? Tired? Irritated? Excited? How did you feel five minutes after? Relieved? Sad? Full of laughter? Ready to go home?

The picture itself may show only one second, but the story lives on both sides of that second.

Look beyond the people in the center. What else is in the picture? A purse on the chair. A coffee cup on the table. A child’s shoe kicked into the corner. A dog waiting near the door. A bouquet beginning to wilt. A car packed for a trip. A shadow across the sidewalk.

Those little things matter. They are often the breadcrumbs that lead us back to the real story.

Before long, a simple picture becomes more than a memory. It becomes a doorway. Step through it, and you may find a story you did not even know you remembered.

This weekend, make a few new memories. Take a picture. Take a walk. Go somewhere. Notice the weather, the people, the ground beneath your feet, and the feelings that come before and after.

Autumn is a lovely time to kick through the leaves and gather stories.

Winter will be here before we know it.

Some things hold memories for us. Early on in my widowhood, I called them kryptonite. A smell. An initialed stapler. A cookie sheet that baked his favorite cookies. Or something more obvious, like a card, video, or letter.

During my move into Winterpast, everything had belonged to us. Things had been held and packed by us. But the unpacking was something entirely different. I was the one opening the boxes, deciding where things belonged in a life I hadn’t planned. At times, the weight of a memory caused me to close the drawer or box. That was enough for one day.

As days have rolled into years, those moments are fewer and farther between. Pictures now bring a smile and more memories of what was beyond the frame. The photograph holds one instant, but I remember more. What we were doing. Why we were laughing. What happened when someone finally put the camera down.

Find those things. A photograph tucked into a drawer. A recipe with handwritten notes along the edge. A letter you haven’t unfolded in years. If you’re ready, spend a little time with one of them.

Try thinking about the fifteen minutes before the picture and fifteen minutes after. Who suggested taking it? What had you been talking about? Where did everyone go afterward? Pretty soon, you have memories of an entire hour or day.

The same can happen with an ordinary household object. That cookie sheet brings back the kitchen, the smell of something baking, and the person waiting for the first cookie. The story grows as you remember the little things around it.

Write those details down. You don’t have to know where they belong yet. A few words may be enough to hold the memory until you’re ready to tell more. And if today is a day for closing the drawer, you can do that, too.

Many of those small things found their way into Widow: A Journey Toward Life, my memoir of the first year after losing my husband. The book will be released on November 11, and the e-book version is available for preorder now on Amazon. I’m looking forward to sharing that journey with you.

For today, perhaps there’s one drawer waiting to be opened. Who knows what part of your story is tucked inside?