01 Jun Love Is All Around

Note: The BAH Memorial Garden is located on the side of Living Memorial Park (directly across from 21 Guilford Street, on the hillside adjacent to the road).

On June 6, we will have our first springtime Planting Service at the Memorial Garden since 2019, when the garden will be decked out with colorful annuals and new memorial stones. Believe it or not, the first planting service was held twenty-five years ago, in 1998. I thought this would be a good time to highlight the Memorial Garden, for those who don’t know much about it or maybe even know that Brattleboro Area Hospice has a garden!

The Memorial Garden is really former Bereavement Care Coordinator Elizabeth Pittman’s baby. As Frances Herbert, the first Hospice gardener, put it years ago, “Elizabeth has known the power of a garden and she’s kept the vision alive” of creating, as part of the Bereavement Program, a beautiful spot that anyone could visit to remember a loved one. Part of that vision was that only natural things – stones and plants – would go in the garden. It’s not meant for keepsakes or permanent markers. And it is nonreligious: no crosses or crucifixes or prayer flags. It is instead a placeholder for memories: always present, always changing, always eroding, always renewing. 

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The garden began as a few raised beds along Guilford St., in a section of Living Memorial Park that the Town of Brattleboro allows us to use. Over time, perennials filled the beds, and flowering shrubs and other trees were donated. The garden quickly outgrew its original footprint, as gardens are wont to do! 

In May 2007, stonemason Dan Snow held a workshop at the garden to teach a group of Hospice volunteers, staff and board members how to build a stone wall, in the process providing the hardscape for the garden as it now stands. That June, Edwin de Bruijn of Holland’s Bloom built the pergola, placed the We Remember Them bench (donated in 2002), and dug out new beds with his crew. The old perennials were replanted, new ones were added, and the garden began its next chapter.

Elizabeth says today, “It’s a community garden that wouldn’t have grown into what it is without the care, support and participation of community members.” 

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My own first contact with BAH was through the Memorial Garden. Kris McDermet, longtime volunteer and board member, told me BAH needed a gardener. I met with Elizabeth Pittman at the garden in early spring 2010, snow still on the ground. A few weeks later, after Elizabeth hired me, I started raking out and cleaning up and the garden took shape before me.

The first thing I did every spring was remove the memorial stones from around the pergola to clean out the leaves and debris trapped behind them, then tuck them back in. Over time, familiar names appeared (a former coworker, a fellow Community Chorus member, a neighbor) and favorite messages emerged: “Yes to everything, Mom”; “It’s summer, Dad. Thought of you in the garden. Miss you”; and “Love is all around.”  I added stones, too. For my cousin Janet, my grandparents, eventually my dad . . . I planted catmint and placed stones for my beloved cats, Charlotte and Nellie Bean.

When I told people about the garden, and its stones, they would sometimes respond, “Oh, isn’t that sad?” (The classic response to saying you work for a hospice!) Well, no. Love is all around in the garden. Yes, there’s grief and regret written there, but it’s love that gathers us, that marks the stones. 

And I’m not alone in believing that: I found these quotes from former garden volunteers in past newsletters. Joan Benneyan said, “The time I spend working in the Hospice Garden always gives my spirit a good lift. As I weed or plant in the fresh air . . ., I slowly regain perspective on the happenings in my own life. . . . Gardening at Hospice provides me with a special quiet time to remember my mother and loved ones and friends who have died. . . . I enjoy creating a beautiful space for all to enjoy.” And Lee Ha shared what she found there: “Peace. I find a personal kind of peace volunteering in the Hospice Garden. Every plant has been planted with love and tenderness and someone’s caring hands. . . . As the garden grows throughout the spring and summer, [it reminds] me that life continues and memories of our loved ones continue to live in our hearts.” It was a privilege to tend the garden, with many helping hands, for over 10 years. (And a shoutout to the other Hospice gardeners over the years: Frances Herbert, Penfield Chester, Betsy Bates, Ruth Nangeroni and Roberta Levy. Apologies if I left anyone out.)

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I hope, if you find yourself at the park or on Guilford Street, that you’ll stop by the Memorial Garden, and please join us on June 6. We could all stand to chance upon a little beauty, to be surprised by joy and “a suddenness of flowers.” ~ Hilary Farquhar

Click here to see a gallery of the Memorial Garden.