Grief in Bloom
How a Public Garden Helped Me Find My Way After Loss
By Mary Mantey Photos by Rachel Bradshaw
When the world feels shattered, where do you go to put the pieces back together?
After losing my brother and father within a short period, grief settled in as an unwelcome but constant companion. Their absence left an ache too vast for words—a silence that threatened to swallow everything. I struggled to find footing in a world that kept turning, even as mine had unraveled entirely.
What saved me—what held me—was my work.
During this challenging season, I accepted a position at a botanical garden in Virginia, a place shaped by the rhythms of nature. Each day, surrounded by mature oaks and quiet moss-lined paths, I found refuge. In a way I hadn’t anticipated, my work—curating beauty—became the bridge between unbearable grief and fragile hope, a way for a fragmented heart to begin to find wholeness again.
Gardening is an act of creation. Seeds are planted and expected to grow into something vibrant, beautiful, and alive. After death, though, that same act of creation becomes a foreign idea. It becomes a quiet resistance against despair. To coax life from the soil when everything inside you feels broken.
I spent early mornings pruning in quiet corners of the garden, finding comfort in the steady rhythm of small, deliberate tasks. I watched the seasons turn—tender leaves unfurling in spring, brilliant blooms bursting against the heat of summer, the slow, dignified retreat of fall. Each season carried its own ache—a memory, a birthday, a quiet reminder of those I had lost. And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that healing isn’t linear.
The garden gave me space to grieve without judgment. It also returned something grief had stolen—a sense of purpose. Each plant I tended, each robin that lingered on the branch where I was working a moment longer than expected, became a quiet offering to my father and brother.
In a time when so much feels fleeting, gardens teach a quiet, essential truth: life cycles onward. Death, yes—but also regrowth. Dormancy—but also renewal. What is broken may not be fixed exactly, but those cracks let the light in.
