Lauren Graduates - Lauren Gardens
Saturday, July 09, 2016
Lauren and on her left and behind Rosa 'Abraham Darby' |
There are only two males in my immediate family. One is my
son-in-law Bruce Stewart and the other is Rosemary’s cat Casi-Casi. I am
blessed in being surrounded by women. Sometimes they nag but most of the time
they are wonderfully and pleasantly female.
I have two granddaughters. One is 18 the other one just
turned 14. The older one is presently visiting Dante’s Inferno and all we can
do is hope that Beatrice Portinari will soon intervene.
Communications between
the older one and her much older grandfather are open so I can hope for the
best.
The younger one, Lauren is forthright, knows what she wants
and keeps her cards close to her chest. She has many talents but if she ever
wanted to play poker she would make most of us lose our shirts.
She graduated from elementary school a couple of weeks ago. She has told me that she plans to go through the Arts Umbrella Dance Company’s program to the end. That she and her family have moved to the farthest reaches of Burnaby at the slopes of Burnaby Mountain means that she will be taking buses and a few of us will be driving her around to fulfill her obligations to dance and her violin lessons. Nobody ever forced her to dance or to play the violin. She started by choice.
While visiting us in our old home on Athlone and in our new
one in Kitsilano she mentioned (she does not mention often) that her favourite
rose is the English Rose, Rosa ‘Abraham Darby’.
I found a healthy specimen at the UBC Shop in the Garden. It and a few
other plants went into the outside box of her Burnaby home. She helped me haul
soil, sand and grit so we could make the box dry more quickly as it is over the
underground parking lot and there is no real drainage.
There is no doubt in my mind that Lauren in her dogged way
will tend to her garden.
Of my other granddaughter I hope to soon drive with her on a
trip to San Francisco. It will do us both good.