I pried the lid loose and found dozens of little paper packets, each carefully labeled in my aunt Pauline’s handwriting. At first I thought they were just seeds she’d saved from her garden. Then I noticed an envelope tucked underneath them with my name written across the front.
I sat on the hotel bed and opened it. The letter started, “If Brenda handed you the gardening box, then I suppose everything worked out exactly as planned.” I laughed and cried at the same time because that sounded exactly like Aunt Pauline. She wrote that she’d watched her children spend years arguing over things they thought were valuable while completely missing the things she cared about most. She knew the gardening box would be the last thing anyone wanted, and she knew I’d be the one person curious enough to go through every inch of it.
The seed packets weren’t ordinary seeds. On the back of each one she’d written a memory. The zinnias were from the summer she taught me how to pull weeds without yanking up the flowers. The tomatoes came from plants we’d grown together after I moved in with her. The sunflower seeds had a note that simply said, “The year you finally smiled again.” By the time I reached the last packet, I could barely see through my tears. Tucked beneath them was a small savings certificate she’d started years earlier, not a fortune, but enough to make a difference. Attached was one final note: “For a garden of your own.”
A few weeks later Brenda called after she heard about the certificate. Suddenly she was very interested in the gardening box nobody wanted. I listened politely, then reminded her she’d already chosen what she wanted that day.
The following spring, I planted every seed Aunt Pauline had saved. One evening I sat in the middle of the garden with dirt on my hands and the last of her handwritten packets beside me. The flowers swayed in the Tennessee breeze, and for a moment it felt like she was right there, telling me I was planting them too close together, just like she always did.