An Open Gate: A Garden, A Memory, A New Beginning

This is posted with special gratitude to the Grapevine Garden Club for such a meaningful welcome, to my sister-in-law, who so naturally gives of herself in all she does, always taking the time to think of others and to my husband, whose gift for architecture has given me a beautiful garden and a life that continues to blossom.

This year, the Grapevine Garden Club chose my photograph for the cover of their 2025–2026 yearbook. The photograph was of our garden gate. As a new member, it was truly an honor to be welcomed in such a meaningful way by a group that has been growing since 1932.

The gate itself has a wonderful story. It was designed by my husband, an architect with a gift for seeing possibility where others see only space. He did not just build a structure; he created something more. It is an invitation, an opening, a threshold where a memory from long ago can quietly live on. At the top of the gate sits a stain glass window that once hung in the farmhouse where my mom grew up on a farm in North Dakota. It is simple, steady, and full of its own quiet history. In finding a place for that window, Paul did more than design a gate. He gave that memory a way forward, gently weaving my mom’s past into our present in a way I never could have imagined.

I have walked through this gate a million times. It is where I have spent this season of life slowing down, tending what I have planted, and finding a quiet kind of peace.

When I was invited by my sister-in-law to join the Grapevine Garden Club, I stepped through a new garden gate. Not just for me, but for all of us, this garden gate leads beyond our own gardens into something shared, new friendships, learning, and a deeper sense of community. For now, I find myself standing at that opening, not rushing, but simply taking it in with gratitude and a quiet sense of curiosity for what may come. Grateful for where I have been and open to what may come next, much like my mom’s stain glass window, carried forward into something new.  My sincere thanks to the Grapevine Garden Club, and to my sister-in-law and husband, each of whom has opened a gate for me in their own way.  https://grapevinegardenclub.org/