Harvest

On Friendship, Grief, and What Grows Over Time

This week, half my currants came in all at once — deep red, glossy, almost too perfect to be real. My friend of thirty-plus years flew in and, in between work meetings, spent two hours picking them.

That’s just half the crop. The rest are still shaded, still ripening. He won’t be here to help with those. But this afternoon, he’ll help me harvest the sour cherries.

That’s not why he came, of course. He had a work thing. Last week, he had a different work thing and weeded my garden beds instead.

He’s a good friend. And a good gardener.

Would I have imagined this thirty years ago? Not even close. I didn’t imagine having a garden. I didn’t imagine being a 50-year-old widow who needed this kind of help. But I could have imagined him — standing in my kitchen, asking, “What do you need done?” That’s the kind of man he’s always been.

What Was Planted Before Us

The currant bushes weren’t mine to begin with. The woman who lived here before me planted them — along with the gooseberries and blackberries that will ripen later this season. I’m simply the one who gets to tend and enjoy them now.

Some of what we harvest isn’t what we sowed. It’s what someone before us tended. It’s what nature seeded, quietly and without asking.

Take the arugula, for example. I grow it every year in my lettuce bed. But it thrives best where it’s self-seeded — wild and determined. One of the beds my friend weeded last week is now full of it. I told him to leave it be. It knows where it wants to grow.

So much of life is like that.

A Braided Past

Let me rewind.

Thirty-one years ago, I was dating a man — my college boyfriend — who got uneasy when his high school prom date announced she was marrying a friend of another guy I had casually dated.

(I know — tangled. The important bit is that it’s how I learned all the smart kids in Illinois knew each other from debate tournaments or Model UN or whatever. Texas didn’t work like that.)

Eventually, I met them — the prom date and her fiancé. I liked them right away. Told my boyfriend not to worry — said the guy was good and it would all work out.

I didn’t know that, of course. But I believed it. And it did.

That couple later invited us on a group rafting trip. That year and for several years after, we’d pile into cars, haul coolers and sleeping bags, and go paddling together. I still remember one trip — I was buying maple syrup in a one-stoplight town in Wisconsin when I heard Princess Diana had died.

The way memories layer and root over time — it’s its own kind of garden, isn’t it?

When Everything Changes

Here’s what no one prepares you for: when you become a widow, your relationships change. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes overnight.

Some people vanish. “Let me know what I can do,” they say — and then they disappear. It’s not cruelty, exactly. It’s fear. As if death might be contagious.

Others hold you at arm’s length because you’re suddenly single. As if I’d want their husband after twenty years of listening to complaints about him. As if widowhood made me strange or suspect. An entirely different person.

But some people — the real ones — stay. They keep calling. Keep showing up. Keep inviting me, even when it’s just me now, not a couple.

That’s what my friend did. Over decades, we built something strong and steady. And in this season of loss and overgrowth and ripening, he came and asked, “What do you need done?”

You Reap What You Sow... But Not Always

There’s a proverb — you reap what you sow (Galatians 6:7-9). It’s always struck me as a little too neat. A little smug. Maybe even a little vindictive.

Because yes, sometimes it’s true. Sometimes you plant love and patience and laughter, and something beautiful grows.

But other times?

• The storm comes.

• The frost arrives too early.

• The blight spreads.

• The crop fails for reasons you can’t name.

Sometimes you reap what others sow — a kindness, a cruelty, an inheritance you never expected.

Sometimes you reap what nature sows — wild raspberries in a ditch, arugula that volunteers itself into bloom.

And sometimes you sow and sow and sow... and the harvest takes years.

The Quiet Grace of Tending

This friendship wasn’t born of strategy. We didn’t know, thirty years ago, what we were building. We didn’t plan for grief or gardens or midlife reinvention.

We just kept showing up — over rafting trips and weddings, book clubs and job changes and relocations, texts and shared jokes, occasional heartbreaks. We kept sowing, quietly and consistently.

And now, in a moment when I need help pulling weeds and picking currants, it turns out I’m not alone. It turns out, something has grown.

Because what we’ve built — what we’ve tended — has lasted.

So What Do I Want to Say?

Maybe just this:

• Friendship is slow, sacred work. Like gardening, it requires patience, attention, and care over time.

• You don’t always get what you sow. But sowing with love and intention matters anyway.

• Not every harvest is of our own making. But every harvest invites gratitude.

• Grief rearranges everything. But it can also reveal what remains — and who.

And also:

• You don’t have to have planned this life to live it beautifully. You’re still allowed to plant. To ask for help. To receive it with grace.

The second half of my currants are still ripening. They’ll be ready next week, or maybe the week after. I’m not in a rush. But today, my friend and I will pick cherries in the heat of a July afternoon.

Some fruit you gather with others. Some you pick alone. Either way, it matters that you keep harvesting.