Gifts From Abby s Garden --SHORT STORY

Gifts from Abby’s Garden

A small love story

Prologue

I don’t really know why I am writing this story. Sure it’s an account of
my Romance. My love of my life, A story of the melting of the genders.
Perhaps a piece of our earthly journey we just have to find before it’s
too late,

That alone deserved the telling, but I am an ordinary man, not a writer in fact the clear screen below is terrifying to me.

I can feel the story arriving in small pieces. I needed to bolt the
random parts together. To flow from the beginning’s to the end, you
know.  I know as I write,  it floods to me in waves and I don’t have
time to clean up the text it just pours from my fingertips to the keys
of my computer  .

Can Abby be automatically writing it through my body I don’t Know I just
feel that words and details of the memories in the pages below are not
just mine?

Is it a romantic story?  Yes for sure it is.  Does it have a happy ending, I think so, but not in the Hollywood way. Is it worth a read?  I believe it is. But of more importance I think my Dear Abby would have believed it is.

Is it a sad story yes In parts it makes me cry, but will it bring you to tears, I think there is good chance that it may.

We as humans are very blasé with the word Love and in many respects
demean its true value ,perhaps like the Christmas story it has become
commercialised and twisted losing its real meaning and when the story is
retold in its basic form with true kindness and feeling the story
shines with a beauty and simple values that were of course its original
intention

I think Ben and Abby had such a story and in this telling of it is now
clear to me it’s important because of its beauty and simple values that
cost little in monetary terms,  but can willingly cost you your very
soul because you want to give it.

For those of you that carry on and read my story. I hope you find some
pleasure in the read and also perhaps a spark of Enthusiasm to revisit
the love story in your life and wonder is it the simple free things we
all can do that are more priceless than diamonds and gold  to our loved
one.

For those that have never found love in this pure form and regard Love
as something for the lucky and the strong. I remind them of my dear
Abby’s saying “Just when you think you are past love you will meet your
last love”

Gifts From Abby’s Garden

Ben

He awoke that morning to the streams of daylight that could be only as
bright because the summer sun was rising. It came to him as he revived
from his slumber he was starting the summer holidays. No more teaching
until September. Not that he minded teaching it was his passion it was
his lot in life to teach the young minds and help them on their way to a
productive life in the future. He hoped he had made a difference.

No today he was leaving England for the tour of Italy. A vacation with a
few close friends. They had rented a minibus and they were to drive
there and stay for four weeks. At Thirty he should be settled and
married said his mother. Her simple command was” find a nice girl and
settle down Ben”. Secretly she was worried he was gay, this confidence
passed to him by his sister. His sister was not immune to the marriage
prompting she would say Ben get out there and find a nice woman you have
had all my friends I have none left to give you. What he knew was the
reason he didn’t date much anymore was he was tired of empty sex it was
casual and meaningless to him he wanted more much more than that. He
would smile at her and say ‘ I may surprise you all someday”.

What he did not know was he would very soon meet up with fate, kismet,
and serendipity, call it what you wish. It was waiting for him in Italy.

Abby

Abby sat in the airport in Toronto her three best friends were with her
she was in her prime she looked fresh and lovely. She had been friends
with these girls since school and they were going to have the time of
their lives,  in Italy doing a tour of the country with a whole month
free away from her work. Firstly, a week in Rome,  the eternal city. At
twenty five she thought she should be travelling with her husband or at
least her fiancé but alas she had neither. She knew she was attractive,
more honestly pretty. This was a hindrance more than benefit in her
mind.  Men seemed to shy away from her. perhaps fearing rejection. Well
whatever the reason there was no one in her life. The men she met and
dated were more into themselves than anything else and she felt more
like an accessory when she accompanied them on a date. Her family were
well off and wanted her to marry someone with prospects as her father
put it. He had several up and coming young men from his brokerage firm
take her out but she had not found the spark that is essential to form a
relationship that will last a lifetime. However she smiled to herself
this European odyssey might broaden her outlook and she would meet
someone that was meant for her when she returned next month. Meanwhile
she would enjoy Rome and her girlfriends for a whole month.

The knowledge of the next few weeks were as yet in the future. Abby’s
world was to collide with her lovers. That special meeting she had
dreamed of to this point in her life .was soon to be a reality.

In Rome

For Ben the journey was long they took a ferry from Southampton to Le
Havre in France and then traveled the 1600 Km journey to Rome through
France to Switzerland and then to northern Italy . They stopped
overnight and completed the twenty four hours of driving in two days.

In the old modest hotel in the center of Rome He slept and did not
awaken until 8 pm when he felt hungry. The group of friends showered and
changed and walked a short distance to the restaurant. It was close to
the Trevi Fountain the one that was the inspiration of the old movie,
Three Coins in the Fountain. By now it was after nine just the time that
Italians like to eat there late meal having slept in the afternoon for a
siesta. They were all ready to make a night of it with their family’s
children and all their close friends as only Italians can.

Sitting at a seat at the bar awaiting a table reading the menu . The
whole menu consisted of Pasta choices over fifty of them each with many
choices of sauces. He ordered a glass of Chianti and slowly sipped the
wine and he breathed in the relaxed ambiance.

He noted four attractive women at the bar and glanced at one of them she
had the most beautiful face with flowing hair and her smile oh what a
smile she had. The young woman must have felt his stare as she looked up
and their eyes met for the first time. He thought she must be American
but she later chastised him that she was Canadian.

She looked at him for a moment and smiled that smile. He had to meet
her, speak to her, he just had to. Overcoming his shyness,  his natural
urge was to quietly hang back from the limelight. He swallowed and
plucked up enough courage then walked to her and said softly are you
approachable she smiled at him and repeated his word approachable –I
think so, well he said so many beautiful women are not. She said sit
down join me for a glass of wine he said thank you I am Ben she smiled
and said hello nice to meet you Ben I am Abby.

He did and within seconds they were chatting as though old friends it
was almost as though it was a reunion not a chance meeting. At thirty
minutes he could have left her at forty-five minutes leaving her was not
possible at the hour he knew he was falling in love with her.

Abby looked at him he was not her usual type not flashy and self
centered he was gentle and kindly and spoke to her with his soft English
accent she said I read your Aura I see Auras in people. He wondered
what an Aura was but she continued she said most of the men I meet have
brightly lit Auras like lighthouse beacons very flashy but yours are
fine lights like the lights on a Christmas tree in a dark room and I
have always loved Christmas Trees.

At the end of the evening it was late he escorted her back to her hotel
and said. Abby can I have my heart back I need it to go home she smiled
her smile and he felt himself melting and  she said No Ben you gave it
to me, it belongs to me now.

Then without warning she leaned towards him and they kissed for the
first time. Then freely and without reservation he gave her his heart
locked in a crystal case with only one key that she held in her hand.
From that moment until she died he never asked for that key back.

Holding her to him He whispered in her ear my lady I have waited for you
for so long I have been so lonely and she had a tear in eye and said as
I have longed for you darling.

As he turned to go home she took his hand into hers  and in silence she
took him to her room and he lay with her for the first time. All his
life had been in black and white to that point then in an instant it
flooded with vibrant colours.

He did not sleep after they made love he wondered at her beauty as she
lay resting in the twilight.  He held her in his arms as a child safe
and secure in his charge. Holding vigil over her slumber and for the
first time in a very long while, he prayed a prayer of thanks.

From that moment they were never separated again for the whole trip. On
the last night before they were to go home Abby looked at him and said
Ben what am I going to do with you I can’t leave you. He looked at her
and kissed her and said Abby become my wife and make me the happiest man
on the earth. She cried and rested her head on his chest and said Oh
yes Ben, Yes I love you so much.

The next day in Florence the ancient city that is over two thousand
years old they entered a small jewelry shop on the Pont Devechio the
bridge that had carried the Roman armies to their conquest in the age of
the Caesar’s and he bought her engagement ring which she never removed
from her hand again

That night he took her to the airport and they kissed farewell he
promised her he would be over to Canada as soon as he could get a visa
sorted out and she knew without a single doubt that  he would. He stayed
in the airport until he watched the Jet take her to their new home and
stayed until its tail lights were a tiny dot in the wide skies that
would separate them.

It took two weeks to get a visa for Canada the lady in the London
Embassy was older lady very formidable  official in style and she said
she had to be convinced this is not a marriage of convenience. Ben
smiled at her and said Ma’am, I just quit my job, sold off most of my
belongings, sublet my flat,  sold my car said a sad goodbye to my
friends and family.  I can assure you it is a marriage of great
inconvenience. She smiled and said why are doing this Ben? He  looked at
her. directly in her eyes and said because I love my Abby more than
life . I have no choice.

She looked at him thoughtfully tapping her pen on her pad. just for a
moment he thought she was going to refuse him .But she stamped his Visa
handing it to him, saying welcome to Canada Ben. He was not sure but he
thought he saw a tear starting in her eyes perhaps she was in remorse
for an experience of loves gift that has passed her by. For sure under
her stiff exterior beat the heart of a woman.

They were married six weeks later in Toronto and moved into the small
cottage that Abby had found in the lovely city that was now his new
hometown.

The Garden

He had fallen head over heels for his beautiful lady and had given up
his life in England to be with her. He was in an environment that was
new and a culture so different from the homeland of his birth. It did
not matter to him, it was such a small price to pay, he loved her with
all of his heart and would follow her to the ends of the earth if that’s
what  was needed to be with her. Still after all this time he could not
believe that someone as beautiful and sweet as she could have chosen
him and he gave thanks to the great spirit for bringing her to him in
this earthly journey. He had beaten all the stacked odds and found “The
One”

They bought the old cottage home in the city which had a nice sized
garden, it was somewhat unkempt, as in her later years the old lady who
was the previous owner did not have the strength or financial resources
to care of it. However she could see it as the haven she planned for
them to have. A vision of nature’s bounty that would be just theirs, a
refuge where their senses would be heightened and their spirits calmed.

They were much stretched financially as the old cottage in the city that
they both loved was at the very top of their modest newlywed budget and
it meant they would have to do the work themselves with no possibility
of a landscape artist.  The garden was truly a fixer upper, but She
could see the potential and looked at the job with excitement and
enthusiasm. This garden project was to become her passion. She attacked
the project with creative skill and hard work. He did all he could
hopelessly inexperienced in gardening he helped her with the heavy work
and did exactly what she ordered him to do, he worked for her tirelessly
without complaint and knew the desire she had for this garden.
Exhausted he waited patiently for her smile and hugs as he completed
some small task that was a stepping stone to her goals for the garden
refuge she planned.

After a short time the work started to win the battle and the garden
took shape with a designed organisation that promised a fulfilled
reality in the warm glow of the summer sun and its soft rain showers
that would nourish it.

The pathways were refitted to be quaint neat and tidy, its borders ready
to eagerly receive the plants and shrubs she was going to dress them
in. The old  gazebo was repaired and painted white belying its age new
wood replacing the old weather torn structures she had him install
Victorian Gingerbread  decors and when finished it looked beautiful. The
garden was full of overgrown trees and shrubs he wanted to cut them out
but she lovingly pruned and trimmed them and they grew in beauty and
responded to her gentle touch as all living things did.

She selected each plant and carefully planted then she thinned older
overgrown perennials it and resurrected them. Like all things left
uncared for her touch and gentle persuasions brought them back to life
as they preened to show her how lovely that they could be. It was so
with him she made him want to be a better man and with her loving touch
He was. Working tirelessly he loaded top soil and fertilizers

However in the early spring in the northern climb nothing was in flower
and only shoots were fighting to be born after the long northern harsh
winter that had just preceded the warming early spring days. Inside the
old potting shed he found plant pots and containers that he cleaned and
repaired and many old gardening tools and support canes that were the
old ladies. He carefully repaired them and gave them to his young wife.
Once again history was repeated as so often it does, the ancient tools
were put to good use and with care and loving attention she made them
her own.

A small greenhouse was a big task to fix up but together with the energy
given to the young they got it repaired and ready to be planted,

To save money she bought packages of seeds and germinated them into
seedlings protecting them from the still cold nights of spring her
nurturing was a precursor to how she would protect his seed inside her
sweet body as she became with child and nurtured their beloved son to
the happy healthy boy he became.

As the days warmed with the pure sunshine of later spring, the plants
were removed from the greenhouse and transplanted into her carefully
designed flower beds. He saw her in her long printed cotton gardening
dress a wide brimmed hat and her slim body bent over carefully tending
her tiny seedlings. If it was possible his heart filled with yet more
love for her and he watched as long as he could filling his memory with
her vista.

The wooden sitting benches were repaired and painted and the rose
arbours renovated it really looked like an old English cottage garden
again. He mused it looked like the olde English cottage gardens of
Cornwall and Devon and it occurred to him that she had designed this
look to make him feel at home in this Country so distant from his, to be
comfortable and safe in her soft charge.

It took shape and after a short while the garden was trimmed and it took
form. Her refuge was coming to life and the shape of things to come
renewed their sapped energy.

Her care gave the home a permanent gift of colors and fragrances, from
the first days of the dissolving of the winter’s snow carpet by the warm
treasured rays of the sun.  Tiny snowdrops and crocus unknown to them
poked their heads defiantly above the snowy patched ground and she
smiled in delight at their appearance. Perhaps they were a gift from the
old lady who had lived there previously. They would rise in the gaps of
the melted snow. Then as the snow disappeared for the season narcissi
and yellow king Alfred daffodils fragrant groups of hyacinths took their
turn to bring their heart-warming welcome to the gentle softness of
spring.  Tulip beds would stand in majestic sentry splashing their rich
colors brashly for all to see knowing she would love them as they poured
their overstated hues into her vision.

The garden had a a growing list of inhabitants from pesky squirrels to
pregnant rabbits and occasional mice she would never allow Him to trap
them or disturb them. She said it would not be right to; after all they
were here first. We were in fact living there as their guest. He never
disapproved of her quaint beliefs he knew she was a protector of all
life especially its underdogs. He knew she collected odd creatures in
her haven to bring them back to life as she had done with him giving him
purpose and renewal of his spirit.

Often In the morning a group of animals would be feeding on scraps of
carrots and lettuce leaves from her hand. Their natural reticence to
human contact overcome by her gentleness they felt secure and their
trust safely invested. He marvelled at her soft countenance knowing that
he too ate his love from her outstretched hand accepting it quietly and
safely and with his complete trust.

Her pots of geraniums and draconia spikes glistened as she watered them.
The early sun caught the shower sprays of water and soft hues of the
rainbows primary colors added a magical spell to the watering hose in
her hand as the plants gulped their refreshment. He truly fell in love
with her again and again in that garden.

When it was completed and they sat reading a book of listening to soft
music in the summer evenings. He remembered she once said I love it with
you so much here my love.  It’s like the story of the secret garden
which cured all who entered it and locked out unwelcome emotions from
the world outside. From that moment on the tranquil place of flowers and
their essences was known to them as the secret garden.

At night in heart of the summer season the perfumed night scented stock
that grew abundantly in the window box on the sill of their bedroom
window would catch a cooling breeze and drift into their room, filling
 their senses as they gave each the comforts and pleasure that are a
gift from the great spirit his mystery of life. It was not so much sex
but an act older than time itself as natural as water and to them a
known beautiful secret they shared. Afterwards he would lay awake
watching his lovely treasure sleep as a child in his arms. Keeping her
safe and warm, as she was deeply resting. Her trust was totally in his
charge and was complete. Her knowledge that he was hers for life,
chained to her heart with unbreakable invisible bonds of love that were
stronger than man’s hardest steel.

At nights in the summer they would sit in the cool air sometimes sipping
a little glass of wine and talk passing their tranquil lives enjoying
each other. The soft fragrances of the garden grew stronger as the
darkness prevailed its magical aromatic healing softness would  float
into the bedroom the air pungent with its soft beauty and they would
fall asleep as it comforted them throughout the dark hours of sleep

The birds had returned in their hundreds and at the breaking of the
indigo darkness by the pale light of blue grey of daybreak they sang
their lovely sweet songs in harmony with nature to awaken them.
Welcoming them to enjoy another beautiful summers morning that nature
was about to bestow upon them.

This beauty was of course too lovely to last. The Great Spirit must have
been lonely and he wanted her in his domain to bring her beauty to it.
 He must not have cared that He a mere mortal was lonely without her as
well and he took her from him. This was an act that he could never
forgive the mean spirited mysterious being for conducting.  For the
first time in his life he hated the all-powerful master of fate.

When she became sick the garden was still tended by her softly caring
for all that grew within its beds and planters. This she did without a
single complaint of her impending mortality. Then as time quickly
progressed she was unable to perform this task any further and the
garden was lost.

When she was taken from him the weather was cold with snowflakes flying
carelessly in the air. Each one flickering reflected colors showing its
kaleidoscope patterned crystalline beauty that was unique to it. He
looked at her garden and wept in his despair.

The plants were left to him to care for but his heart was broken and he
was lost in the anguish of grief of so many emotions, anger, melancholy,
despair, loneliness, self-pity, the garden became wild. Weeds and
plants grew side by side unattended so deep was his grief.

He realised he was paying the awful price of loving her so deeply and
vowed he would never ever allow himself to feel as that again for
another woman. It was a slow lesson he must learn inch by inch until he
distanced himself from the grief and understood the rules of life and
its dark secrets.  It was a lesson that takes its own time to learn for
some they never learn. He was not one of them. It took him two years.

After two years had passed with much pain and sorrow he went to her
garden where he saw an early spring beckoning of the warm sunny days of
summer to yet arrive. Not knowing why he started working at the garden
clearing weeding and tending. It became obsessive to him and he worked
and worked day after day, until he had it looking as wonderful as when
she was here with him

It was then as it bloomed and exploded in nature’s warmth with a
cornucopia of color and fragrances. He noted something as he stood by
the kitchen window.  When it was slightly ajar, allowing the evening
breezes to enter the room. Sometimes the breeze glanced across the
flower beds in certain way a group of blooms here, a lily there then a
rose, collecting and mixing all the fragrance’s,  the perfumes that
filled his senses were familiar to him. It was her perfume mixed from
the abundant choices that she had created. He closed his eyes and in his
mind he saw her in her gardening hat and dress as clear as the real
life images of her and as he saw her smile the fragrances would be
heightened and he felt her in his arms he would kiss her softly and say I
love you so much my angel please stay with me, and for as long as he
closed his eyes the vision of Abby remained.

He was sat in his seat where they used to pass hours together, his work
completed the beauty restored. The weather that early evening was
uncertain  a heavy cover of clouds with little golden spaces between
them would allow searchlight piercing golden rays to suddenly appear he
looked up as a rays of light shone down near his feet and onto a shaded
 area of garden which it ignited in the purest of light it was the azure
blue explosion of forget me not surrounded by fragrant lily of the
valley the plants she loved the most. He knew she was thanking him for
the garden and she was with him once more. It said in his mind over and
over welcome back my love welcome home.

It was then at that very moment he sensed recovery from his grief. He
then knew she had taught him some lessons and he understood for the
first time of the enormity of his self-discovery. It occurred to him she
had taught him how to tend a garden even when she was not there herself
to guide him ,and he had brought it to life once more all alone.  The
most important lesson was a similar one taught to him by her in her
simply gentle patient way that was her nature, he realized she had
taught him two more vital lessons .

Not only how to love her, but how to love.

He awoke from his thoughtful musing as he heard their young son call to
him hey Dad what’s for supper he was Abby’s true immortality of which he
was blessed.

Epilogue

She had one more act of humanity and kindness to perform even as she
left this world. She donated her body parts to those that could use them
when she could not. A woman was given the gift of sight and saw the
beautiful earth for the first time through her eyes. Two people were
given life by having her kidneys purify their blood and regained
strength and health. But of all these lucky people he knew the most
fortunate of all was the person who received her sweet sweet heart.

He Knew one thing for certain if there was truly a heaven his Abby had a wonderful home.

A Dream, Perhaps,

Many long years passed silently, relentlessly, as they do. An old man
sat in his chair on a cold winter night.   Ben sat now an old man, by
his fireplace. Across the other side of the fire was Abby’s chair. Of
late he was very tired at the smallest exertion and he felt his
weakening spirit.  When he spoke with her as he often did of a small
event that had occurred in his day or how proud she would be of their
son now a married man and a father himself, he did not remember of
course she did not answer but his habit continued nevertheless.

The crackling log fire issued a glowing red warmth that reached him,
bringing him comfort and into a tired sleepy state.  He fell softly into
a sleep, no beyond deep a surreal sleep from which the rude presence of
the world he knew was excluded. Ben looked through the mist of his
dream and his Abby was there. She was young and beautiful not old and
broken as he was now. Ben was embarrassed of his aged appearance.  Abby
was wearing the gown in which she had become his bride and his breath
halted at the vision of her . Tears filled his eyes as he reached for
her and he held out his hand as she grasped it so gently and he stepped
to her out of his tired aged body to reach her. He was strong handsome
and young again and she turned to him and kissed him softly on his lips,
 a kiss he had longed for so often. He said I have missed you so much
my angel, she responded as I have missed you my love’

He looked back at the old chair and his old broken body was sat there as
in sleep. She said its fine Ben you do not need it anymore, you are
safe here with me now my love. Together they walked hand in hand across
the cloudy golden mist to a lighted pathway that led to beautiful
 gardens , where the sun never set.