The other day I gardened.

This is not my favorite thing to do, primarily because I always have to yank up miles of weeds, and declare war every spring on this annoying, clinging morning glory that seems to grow fifty feet a day. If I were to leave my home right now that morning glory would cover our house by the end of summer.

My mother's gray ceramic pot, and her mint. I added a geranium and petunia.

You’d drive down the street and all you would see is a mass of morning glory.  It’s not the pretty morning glory, either, that you imagine wrapped around a white picket fence with blue flowers.

No, this has, maybe, one white flower, as if to mock me. The rest of it is a living, sticky, green plant criminal.

After my fight with the morning glory, I headed over to a gray, ceramic pot my mother used to own. After she died, in 2002, and my dad died, in 2007, both of them from cancer, I took it home with me. I love that pot. Inside the pot, every year, my mother’s mint grows, tall and wide.

In the pot, a small maple tree had the audacity to start growing. Also in the pot was another greenish plant that, like the morning glory, seems to grow everywhere in my yard. It’s like a spreading green monster. I’m surprised I don’t have any coming out of my ears.

With my pink gloved hand I tried to yank the maple tree out again and again. No go. It was in there tight. I had dirt and dust on my face from my fruitless fight with the maple tree when I decided to turn my attention to the green monster.  Again, no go. The soil was dry and rock hard, the roots deep and stronger than me. I could hear them both laughing at me.  I will win this battle, I told myself.

My mothers pins, her cross from when she was a girl, her mother's thimble, her baby bracelet, and her Blue Bird pin.

I tipped the heavy pot over my recycling bucket and tried to shake the tree and the green monster out while holding on to my mother’s mint. More dirt and dust flew into my face, my hair, and all over my shirt. I started to swear, a usual activity I embark upon while gardening.

I have saved so many of my mother’s precious things. Her old books from her mother.  Her blue dancing shoes. Her china. A clematis vine in my backyard. A black purse. Her baby bracelet. Her blue bird pin. Her favorite chair.

And yet, there I was, covered in dirt and dust, almost in tears, fighting to keep her mint. A plant.

My mother's favorite chair

I shook that damn pot again over the recycling bin. I said one more bad word. The mint, maple tree, and pesky green monster finally fell out, a plume of more dirt covering my face.

I won, I thought. You can stop laughing at me now, you stupid plants.

I balanced myself on the recycling bin, tipped over, head first, butt up, and grabbed the mint, which had broken free.

I felt rather victorious.

I added fresh soil to the gray pot. I dug a hole for a purple petunia next to the mint and a pink geranium. I cleaned the pot off.

With dirt everywhere I stood back, the tears burning, and thought, will it ever end, this wanting to hold on to her things? Will it?

Then I thought: Should it?

If so, why? My life is full, I’m not held back by grief. I know I’ll see her again. But I just can’t let go of anything I have of hers. Nothing. I treasure it all. And every year when that mint pops up, in her gray ceramic pot, I think of her.  And I smile. She loved gardening.

My mother's china, given to her by her parents when she married my father.

Bette Jean was a lovely lady.

She would understand how I feel.

And she would have laughed, seeing my butt in the air, head down in a dusty recycling bin, swearing at the green monster, scrambling for her mint. A plant.

I’m glad I saved it.

My head down, butt up, as I retrieved my mother's mint. She would have laughed at me...in a nice way.