I was reading Better Homes & Garden recently and there was an article about a woman who had purchased a home with a stable. The information went on to report that this woman, a gardener, just happened to be digging around and uncovered a brick. One brick led to another and she wound up discovering a crosswalk from her home to the stable. Reading about her reminded me of a similar experience with our home in Maryland.

I had envisioned a garden in our backyard in front of an old brick barbeque that was not usable without a lot of renovation. Using my trowel, I started to remove some sod and hit something hard. Same kind of thing for me - I began pulling up sod and discovered an entire brick patio smack in front of the barbeque. What a cool find. We wound up planting creeping thyme among the bricks and used the barbeque to house container plants. But here's the rest of the story. Apparently the woman from whom we purchased the house had lived there all of her life from the time of her parents and through her two marriages. She had one child who, when of age, went into the military to fight in WWII. He came home on leave and built her the barbeque and patio. When he returned to duty, her son was killed in a freak accident. He fell off the back of a truck hitting his head.

Here's why I'm telling you the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say. When my husband and I had built out our gardens complete with fish pond, we took a picture and sent it to my folks so they could see our property. They had already relocated from Maryland at that time so never saw our house. A week later I called to see how they were doing and my Dad asked, "Who is that soldier in the picture you sent?" Did I just give you chills? That was my reaction - I said, "What soldier?" He told me there was a soldier standing next to the barbeque looking toward the house as though he had posed for the picture. I told my dad there was no one in the yard at the time the picture was taken, but he insisted. He also sent me the picture back with the area circled so we could see it. When we received the pic, there was no person standing in the circle. So the question is did my Dad see Edith's son or are we just NOT seeing him? Who knows but based on other experiences we had living there, I would venture to guess he was there all the time overseeing our efforts. Happy Gardening and Edith, if you're looking over my shoulder, this one's for you.