Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening: How I Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart by Carol Wall

let him do as he wished with them without further fight. His work on the second bush went quickly. He didn’t seem to mind that I hovered close by while he pinched off debris to find the healthy parts. I took advantage of the chance to ask him further questions about his family. He told me that his wife’s name was Bienta. His expression brightened as he spoke of her. They were of the Luo tribe, second largest of more than forty tribes in Kenya. Bienta’s name was “a Luo-cized version,” as he put it, of the French name Bernadette.
    “She was born on the mainland, near Kisumu,” he explained. “While I was brought into the world in more rural circumstances on the tiny island of Rusinga, in Lake Victoria.”
    “Well, I hope to meet Bienta soon,” I said.
    “You will,” he quickly agreed. “Sometime, I will bring her by your compound. She is reserved and proper, but not shy.”
    My envious nature bubbled up to the surface. I wondered if Dick ever wore such an adoring look when he spoke about me. I felt deflated to recall a petty argument we had had not long ago. We’d screamed at each other until our faces were red. Dick hadmade another of his misty-eyed comments to me about how many life lessons we had learned from my cancer treatment. Instantly, I’d wanted to slap him silly. We made up in the end—we always did—but no one won, and nothing, really, was resolved. In counterpoint, and as a form of self-torture, I imagined Giles Owita and Bienta holding hands before a meal. Their boys (as I pictured them) sat opposite. They all bowed their heads in prayer. Their house was small, but well kept. Roses magically bloomed at the door in all seasons. As they repeated their so-far-unanswered prayers for Lok, they remained generous of spirit, concerned for other people. I thought of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he instructed that we should “not grow weary in doing good.” The Owitas clearly did not tire of doing good. In fact, they took the time to lift two strangers, my struggling parents, to the tender mercy of God above.
    Then I found myself wondering something. “Your Luo tribe has its own religion, true?”
    Giles Owita seemed unhurried and relaxed, as if completely open to a teaching moment, even as our other projects waited. In fact, he looked pleased at this invitation to revisit the way of life he learned as a child. I brought him a bottle of water from the house and he paused in his work for a moment.
    “Tribal beliefs are based on a reverence for ancestors,” Giles Owita began. “In our culture, the elderly, whether living or deceased, are revered. We’re taught that our ancestors live below”—he pointed to the ground—“and are our foundation. From this place, they offer special wisdom. If I were to dreamabout my father, I would not say I dreamed
about
him, but rather, that my father
has brought a dream.
Our ancestors are still actors in our lives, a source of wisdom and protection. Such dreams are shared with others in the village, with everyone giving an interpretation. In my father’s time, some food and drink would even be sprinkled on the ground before a meal. Given the state of medical care and the fact that disease and death are commonplace in our part of the world, it is considered an achievement to have reached the stage of life your parents have attained, Mrs. Wall.”
    Like a concert pianist concluding the second movement of a flawless performance, Giles Owita lifted his hands from the leafy depths of the second azalea. As if on cue, a dull gray station wagon poked its dusty nose over the crest of Mount Vernon Road. It proceeded down the gentle grade in its usual painstaking way and the brake lights flashed repeatedly as if the vehicle’s shock absorbers were being tested.
    Oh, my God. Not him,
I thought.
    “Don’t forget about that third azalea,” I prompted desperately, hoping to keep Giles Owita from noticing the dusty car and its irascible driver.
    It was someone