If you ever get the chance you have to see my garden. On your first visit you'll be amazed. Blinded by its brilliance. You'll sit for hours just staring at the ground, admiring the lush greenness of the grass, the feel of the warm dirt between your toes (no shoes allowed in my garden!), and you'll exclaim as the flowers open to the sun, their vibrant colors causing your eyes to water. Then you'll walk the grounds being extremely careful where you place your feet (you won't want to crush those delicate petals), and your hands will reach out to caress the rough bark of the trees. Pine trees, maple trees, cheery blossom trees, dogwoods, willows, Magnolias, redwood, fern trees. Suddenly your hand will stop and you'll just gasp as you look up and up and up. This tree has to be climbed on your first visit. Every oak tree has to be climbed once in its life. As you reach up to the first branch you understand that you aren't the first to climb this tree. Oh no. it has borne up many people just like you to its lofty heights. You are honored to climb it and as you settle down in the top branches, you imagine that you are the ruler of the garden. The Gardener itself, for you can see miles around. My garden is a big garden. The day on your first visit is ending and you are content as you sit in your soft alcove. It is safe where you are, the wind breathing on you and the last light of day touching your brow and making your eyes shine in all their glory. You sit and you listen to my garden. You listen to the trees whisper to each other; you listen to the flowers as they wish good night to the sun, their bright petals closing. You listen to the sigh of the wind and the trickling of water in the stream you didn't have time to see, but you'll see it tomorrow when you come back. There is much to see in my garden, so much that you will never actually see it all. Even though you want to. But at the moment you just want to sit in that mighty oak and listen to the soft whispers, but eventually, as the light disappears altogether and stars come out (they aren't that brilliant on your first visit, it's the half moon) you climb your way down and with a heartfelt sigh you leave my garden, vowing to return.
On your second visit you will notice the birds and the creatures. You'll cry out in joy at their song and you will dream of joining them wishing you had their voice and their beautiful plumage. You'll travel through my garden to the places you have never seen before. On your second visit it will seem that you are traveling in different lands. There will be a desert, a rainforest, a mountain range, a waterfall, an Iceland. All of these will please you and quiet the noise in your heart. You will see rainbows in the rivers, flashes of fishes swarming on the stony bottom where the water rushes the swiftest. You will stand up to your knees in the cool refreshing water and watch the light play across its surface. A sheen of brilliance that will dazzle your eyes. Deers will stand silent as you stop to stare, not fearing of you because no one who has entered my garden has dared to harm the creatures within it, great or small. You will look deep into those large brown eyes and you will quiet and feel awe. You will see many creatures your second visit, but still not all. You know you have missed something though. But again the sun is dying on your second visit and again you don't have enough time to search. You sit on the river edge rubbing the smooth stones between your fingers and looking up at the sky. The stars are brighter tonight and the moon is at its quarter. You promise my garden that you will return and you will find what you have missed. Throwing the stones back into the cool waters you leave.
The third visit you find what you are missing. Indeed, as you first enter my garden you hear laughter. You are startled at the break in the earthy silence of the garden. The first human sound you have heard here, for until now you had feared to speak, to even whisper, to break that tranquility. You follow the laughter and it leads you past the rivers, trees, deserts, forests, and icelands. You go farther into my garden then you have ever gone before. The laughter has lead you to the pinnacle of a cliff. Then you behold what you have missed. In the valley below you witness a gathering of people. People you know people, you don't know, and people you have only ever seen from afar. The laughter came from them and silently you will join in because you have waited a long time for these people (in truth they have waited a long time for you). Your laughter will grow until it fills the whole valley below you with your joy. Your tears of happiness fall to the earth and from the soaked ground a grape vine will begin to grow and spread across the face of the cliff. The vine is strong enough to bear your weight and you climb down to reunite with the lost ones (though actually you were the one who had been lost). You stand in their mist and greet them as they greet you, with laughter and tears. The day wears on and in the valley there is revelry. You are served a bountiful feast and there are stories and speeches. Night comes swiftly and the stars this night are the most beautiful of all. The full moon's reflected light shine as jewels in your eyes. The valley is hushed in peaceful silence as you all watch the stars shoot across the sky. The wind gently caresses you and you smile in simple joy as you listen to the soft murmur of the friends and family around you. You smile at the beauty of it and at the feeling of your heart almost overflowing with happiness. A day and night that becomes one of you Golden Memories when your heart was at peace.
But Golden Memories are just that… memories. And though this third day and night in my garden was time of pure joy it ends in heart-breaking sorrow. Instead of farewells of contented laughter you are assaulted by screams of terror for at the moment before dawn you will see a red glow from a top the cliff. Only when the screams start and the howls and shrieks of animals sound do you know what has happened. My garden has been put to the flame. The grape vine catches fire and suddenly the whole cliff face is alight. You hear screaming and realize it's you. The crowd forces you out of the valley but all the time you stare wide-eyed back at the sea of flames and what had once been my garden, your Golden Memory. Yes… just a memory. One that no amount of tears will bring back to life. No matter that you beg of it to come back, no matter that your heart silently screams for it. My garden, now a burnt husk. Now just a Golden Memory.
Years pass. Seasons will change. My garden grows back, but it is not the same. Only many years later will you return. You will enter my garden, old and withered and see the young trees and the tears you thought were long gone will return. The Golden Memories will fall from your eyes and land on the ground and that is when the Miracle will happen. The sparse young trees will grow tall and the sound of animals will return. In your shock you will race through my garden as if you were young again. You will relive the Golden Memories. You will see the Valley and the people there (a lot more then last time). You will see the animals. You will see the rivers, the forests, the deserts, and the icelands. Night will be upon you when you finally find it, my garden's greatest prize. So it hadn't burned with the rest of my garden. As your gnarled hands grasp the first branches of the great oak tree a gently breeze will bear you upward as if you were a feather upon the wind. The stars will come out and they will be just as brilliant as the last stars of your Golden Memories. You will nestle in your soft alcove above the other trees of my garden, in the softly swaying branches of the oak. There you will be safe. You will fall asleep as the wind caresses you and the stars softly light up your face. This time you will not leave my garden. This will be your final and everlasting Golden Memory. Your heart forever at peace here, in My Garden.