But what gave the house its heart was not inside, it was behind the house - the garden. It was not just a place with plants, but a world of its own. An escape into nature, into new dimensions, away from the crazy world.
Grandma always said to the garden our. Not because it belongs to the family, but because she invested herself in it. Every blade knew her fingers, every furrow her thoughts. Her hands were not gentle, but they were warm. They taught caution, patience and modesty. "The earth hears what you are saying," she said as she knelt wordlessly by the first bed in the morning.
My younger neighbour and I used to go to her. First just out of curiosity, then with growing respect. There was no room for laziness or whimsy in the garden. You had to know the soil first to understand it. Summer was not about resting, it was about watering, weeding, harvesting. All with a kind of quiet grace that my grandmother never lacked.
One autumn, when we were harvesting potatoes, a storm blew up. The children wanted to hide under the shelter, but Grandma stayed between the rows; dirty, soaked, but calm. "You don't leave potatoes in the ground when you are called," she said, and we understood her. Not because we had to, but because we felt she was right. She taught us that every work, no matter how small, is worthy of respect.
In the kitchen, she knew how to use two ingredients to make a lunch that smelled like childhood. It wasn't rich, but it was homemade. Green beans from the garden, potatoes we picked ourselves and a few drops of oil - everything the body and the heart needed. You ate there before you sat down at the table. With warmth.
The garden was an extension of the home. There were rules there too. Nothing was thrown away, nothing was taken for granted. Water was collected in a barrel, compost was not waste but new life. "If you respect the garden, it will feed you even when life is gone," she once said when I was a teenager complaining about school and people. I did not understand her words then, but today I know what she meant.
Today, my grandmother is gone, but the garden is still alive. Maybe not as fully as it used to be, but it lives on in me, in my relationship to the land and to people. When I grab the hoe, it's as if I'm holding it by the hand. And when I bend over the newly planted lettuce, something inside me falls silent. It's like her - the realisation that you are part of a world you can't buy, you can only cherish.
Among gardens tended with effort and not with artificial means, my grandmother (taught) me what it means to respect. Not with words, but with actions - with every seedling she put in the ground, with every autumn when she carefully stored the harvest, and with every look that said "This is how you do it when you care". Respect is not just a value, it is a heritage. And that which grows from the soil remains. In the people, the house and the place you call home.
Zala Krupljan, 20. 4. 2025
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