I received this and thought that you might like it as well. Deb Thought I'd share this with the list.  The last few paragraphs, I have thought about many times and I'm sure others have also. Carol Sunday Afternoon Rocking How Our Gardens Grow (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series) When I was a small girl, my family lived in the upstairs garage apartment of a landlord who had planted a veritable garden of beauty around us.  The "folks in the big house" I will call Mr. and Mrs. C., and truly they had given the fullest of their spare time over to the grounds of their home.  For a young child, it was a fairy kingdom, peopled with the bright happy faces of a hundred varieties and more of first this flower, then that.  To add to the beauty of the tiered flower beds, there was a brick floored special part of the garden in herringbone pattern, the center attraction of which was a glittering gold fish pond, complete with moss covered fountain. Where the brick was not, the lawn was as soft as any carpet I have ever walked barefoot across. Mrs. C. spent long hours in her garden, and took it upon herself to befriend the little girl I was, and allow me to happily traipse behind her as she tended her flowers.  I would kneel beside her in the soft grass and she would gently lift the little heads of the flowers, cupping their bright little faces, each in turn, telling me what "its name was", and why it was best planted when, and how long it would bloom and how.  Before long, I knew better than most adults how to call the names of the flowers in the garden.  I was allowed free reign with one very important admonition.  I was never to pick the flowers. I did quite well with that one rule, until after a very hard winter (and winters were indeed cold and bleak in that country), the tulips bloomed.  Such an array of color I thought I had never seen in all my life and virtually overnight!  The colors bloomed in cheerful abandon and no rainbow ever could out glow the myriad tints and shades of them!  I promptly forgot the "rule", proceeded with careless abandon, and to this day can remember my mood going from elation to horror as I realized that in my arms were a dozen and more tulips, plucked rudely from the earth that had coaxed them forth.  So impulsive was my action, I was not sure just when I had even done it, only that I had. In the way of all those who bear guilt of any kind, and fear repercussion, my first thought was to avoid it.  And the only place I could think of to "hide my sin" was under the profusion of last autumn's fallen leaves that lay between my home and a retaining wall.  There it was I sadly buried that beautiful array of tulips, under the damp and moldy leaves.  No one at all could enjoy their colors now, and for myself, there was now a load of guilt to carry.  I carried it many years, for though I am sure the very kind Mrs. C. noted the tulips had been plucked, she said not a word.  Nor did I.  But I never forgot it, frequently thought with sadness how I had betrayed my adult friend, and what a shame it was that I had tried to bury beauty in the dampness of moldy leaves.  I was well into adulthood before I ever admitted to anyone what I had done.  All the hours Mrs. C. had devoted to creating beauty, only for a thoughtless little girl to destroy it! Many years later, I returned to that place with my husband and one of my teenage children.  I almost wished I had not.  The carefully tended "big house" and its grounds were no longer carefully tended.  Whoever lived there now, did not appear to be at home, and because I had ventured hundreds of miles to see this home of my young girlhood, I also ventured into what had been the garden area.  I peered down at a patch of untended earth where Lilies of the Valley once graced arriving visitors.  I could not find the rose trellis or any semblance of where it had been, nor the fern bed.  And to my shock the bricked garden I remembered no longer even existed!  It was now a weedy patch of ground, the glittering gold fish pond had long ago been filled in, and the peonies that once profusely proclaimed its outskirts were no longer in sight.  Desperately searching for something to remind me of what I remembered, I finally spied, sitting abandoned in the corner of the yard, the fragmented pieces of the fountain.  What I remembered now only lived in my memory, and thinking of Mr. and Mrs. C., I realized how much time had passed and that by now they must have long ago left this world.  I left with a heavy heart, thinking how many hours had been devoted to create beauty, only for it to be buried in neglect. Sometimes I think of how many hours I have devoted to building a family story for my children and their children and the children to come.  I wonder if it will continue and be nurtured as I have tried to nurture it.  And I wonder if it might go the way of Mr. and Mrs. C.'s gardens, abandoned perhaps or destroyed by someone thoughtless.  I suspect that is possible, for I well know of a cousin who spent tireless hours on family history.  How I would love to see her research!  She was much closer to "pivotal sources" than I was, being the granddaughter of the ancestor that has been a stumbling block.  But she has been gone this many a year, and no one seems to know what went with it! Two lessons I can only bring from this. One that we trust no one person with the precious history we have spent so long preparing, but unclasp the treasure we hold tightly to, and share freely, that with at least one of these folks who receive it, surely it will be passed on.  I cannot take each of you by the hand and show you the gardens I remember, but I can describe them for you. I can pass that on.  I can give you a picture of what was given to me. And we can do the same with our histories, each time we share them freely. And two, the knowledge and admittance of the other reason we have spent so many hours at this. Our own pleasure and delight is no small thing, nor anything to feel guilty about enjoying.  What we learn from our passion we pass on in far more ways than a documented source of names and dates.  Each time our passion brings a lilt to our tone or a light to our eyes, each time we meet with pleasure a stranger we have learned is a cousin, each time we share the love of family with those around us, we are lighting a flame that indeed will live on in someone who is lit by the fire that has warmed our own hearts.    It is a shame the garden of Mr. and Mrs. C. did not survive, was not passed on to yet another who loved beauty and not only preserved what they had built, but added more to it.  It is a shame, but it does not mean their efforts were in vain or that they were wasting their time.  They gained great pleasure in those gardens, great rewards from seeing the beauty their efforts brought forth.  They surrounded themselves with beauty and they shared it with others.  I am sure there were others, but I know of a little girl who will never quite forget, and always associate her very youthful years with the beauty of the flowers and the kind caretakers who loved them.  Part of the reason for our love of genealogy has nothing to do with what we wish to pass on, but has everything to do with our own pleasure in assembling it, and the pleasure we give others by our response to it.  And that too, is reason enough for the effort. Just a thought, jan Copyright ©2001janPhilpot ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share though e-mail as written without alterations...and in entirety. If planned for a publication, permission must be granted by the author. Please forward sufficient information concerning the nature and intent of the publication. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to [email protected] Comments about the content of these messages can be sent to [email protected]