In real life I am appalling gardener. I mean, really terrible. I take heart from the fact that my parents who themselves were not known for their gardening skills when I was growing up, now have magnificent gardens that are a constant source of inspiration and hope to me.
So to be a gardener in Rory's Garden is often just as much of a struggle. The problems are different of course, but all too often the similarities are the same. For instance, rarely do people ever acknowledge that their bloom has been planted for them, the lack of comments is testament to that. Even more rarely do they buy the photos.
I am at peace with that. I often wonder though, do people get the emails I send telling them their child's flower has been placed in the Garden? What happens after they make a request? Do they just go away into cyber space never to return?
It's like my own struggles with my own garden. All too rarely do my flowers bloom, though when they do, they look spectacular!
Rory's Garden has peculiarities all it's own, just like most gardens. For instance, the programme we use to upload messages people leave doesn't recognise punctuation. AT ALL. So html coding has become my new best friend and I spend hours adding it to each message. The knock on effect is that I am often in floods of tears posting messages because I READ each one, for meaning and for punctuation. And they break my heart. All of them.
So when people don't acknowledge their request, or leave a comment, or email or write back. I get it. If my heart had been shattered I don't think I would either.
I don't say any of this to engender sympathy. I don't need it.
But it does mean when people write to me, I pay attention. I am grateful.
And I wanted to share this amazing story with you.
Firstly, we get requests from all over the world.
Recently I had a flower request for a little boy called Luca.
It was duly fulfilled and posted.
The very next day, the family purchased the photo.
I wrote to them and emailed them the JPEG and the mother wrote back to me a few days later.
She wrote that she was inspired by a newspaper article about a dear friend of mine, Sally.
From the chasm of her own grief she was organising a special service for bereaved families. There would be lighting of candles, writing their names on cloth and letting go of balloons at the end of the service. The reason she was writing was to ask if she could include Rory's name in the service.
The service would be held in a town called Shepparton.
And so tomorrow night, my brother will be remembered.
This town is only an hour away from where Rory is buried.His name will be spoken near the place where he lies. The place our family left with heavy hearts so many years ago.
His name will be spoken.
And knowing that, has made all these months worthwhile.
Completely.

I was asked by an enterprising utopian to do ( for free) a little ( A -4-ish) painting , depicting 'hope' so he could hang it ( using Velcro), together with lots of likewise paintings by other artists, on the sides of his truck for people all over Europe to see. Thus promoting hope... Unable to say 'No' most of the time to requests like these I promised to think of something.
Around the same time a little painting -on a little easel- was sent to me in the mail by my friend (and Amsterdam spray-can-artist) ' Laser 3.14' showing one of the 1-liners he leaves on so many walls and fences around town.
It took some time before I realised for the 'hope'-project I could paint this mini-painting sitting on my dusty piano, amongst trinkets, statuettes , heron-skull , Daaibooibaai-beach-souvenirs from Curacao, etc...
And , as you can see, I did.