1: Sweat It Out
Chapter 3: Therapeutic Gardens
Chapter 4: Food is Good Medicine
Chapter 6: Build the Community
Chapter 8: Connect with Spirit
Chapter 10: Be Present in Time
INTRODUCTION
The Garden That Heals
“Don’t let cancer define you, Jenny. You are more than your diagnosis.”
This was the advice from my doctor when she gave me the news that I had breast cancer, the disease that had killed my mother. It was Friday, May 11, 2012 – I don’t need to look up the date because it’s seared into my memory, like it is for most people with a cancer diagnosis. I thought, “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have breast cancer.”
Then I met my oncologist, who said, “Not everything in your world can be about breast cancer.” So clearly I had a theme going here, and it made me think beyond my feelings of fear and panic. Who am I, aside from being a person with breast cancer? Who was I before this diagnosis, and had she changed?
The answer is that I am many things. I am Jenny. I am a gardener. I am a writer. I am a mother. I am a fiancée, a sister, a friend. I am a designer. I am a child of God. I am optimistic, sarcastically funny, and I am a good baker. There’s no reason I can’t still be all of those things even after my diagnosis, right?
Yet I struggled with my feelings of competency, I questioned my physical and mental abilities, and I yearned for the days when the world around me felt secure and recognizable. If you’ve had a cancer diagnosis, you’ve probably felt the same. Your world has changed forever, and you don’t know how you’ll navigate all of the changes. Your body doesn’t move and feel the same, and it certainly doesn’t look the same if you’ve had any amount of surgery. You may question your attractiveness and your vitality, your inner and outer strength.
“Don’t let cancer define you, Jenny.”
So how did I not let cancer define me? Not knowing anything better, I simply kept doing what I knew to do. And one of those things was gardening. Plants, and the act of growing and caring for them, have been a central part of my personal and professional life for a long time. I’m a freelance garden writer and author as well as a garden designer, and I’ve gardened on a 150-square-foot garden as well as an entire acre. I love houseplants, flowers, succulents and herbs. So I gardened.
For a long time, my gardening didn’t resemble the type of gardening I used to do. I was weak, and struggled with some range of motion issues in my left arm where I’d had surgery. I felt a little depressed and lacked energy, and I was sensitive to heat. I was told to not lift more than 10 pounds and to not perform repetitive, jarring motions. That kind of left out shoveling, wheelbarrowing and plant hauling. What to do, what to do.
I’m not going to lie – I had many days when I did not feel like gardening. But I decided to change my approach and focus on small, doable tasks. I could water my front porch plants and tend to my houseplants without any problem, so that’s what I did most days. And little by little, my relationship with plants and my garden became the thing that turned me around – body, mind and spirit. No, it wasn’t easy. Nothing about cancer and cancer treatment is easy. But it was my reality, and I was determined to find some place where I could thrive and experience joy again.
And you will, too. This book is not a how-to, because everybody’s journey is different. I wrote this book as a way of helping you find a way to enjoy your life and the world around you, even if you have cancer. If you have this book in your hands, you are a gardener or you want to be one. Your garden – no matter how large or small, how grand or humble – can be a place of beauty and refuge for you at a time when you need it the most. It can help to strengthen you and widen your world, and it can remind you of who you are. Your garden can be a garden that heals…a companion on your journey.
So don’t let cancer define you. You’re a gardener, and gardeners believe in possibilities.
What’s Inside
Before we get started, I want to talk with you about what is in this book exactly, and what you can expect from it. It’s not a gardening “how-to” manual – there are many books out there that tell you exactly how to plant something, how to treat oak wilt and how to sow seeds. This is not that book. This book is to encourage people who are diagnosed with cancer, going through cancer treatment, healing from cancer or living with cancer to view their gardens, plants and outdoor spaces as resources in creating the healthiest and most balanced life possible. Life can be difficult, but it can also be profoundly beautiful, and our gardens are the best teachers of this.
This book has three sections: Body, Mind and Spirit. Many people (myself included) have a tendency to confuse Mind and Spirit, so I thought it would be helpful to give my definitions.
BODY: Our physical being is described as our Body. Brains, cells, muscles,
