It will freeze tonight.  How will my garden fare, all those tender shoots of green with swollen buds?  I will not have my answer until tomorrow.  We gardeners do what we can and hope for the best. 

At the master gardener’s help desk this afternoon, I advised callers to water their soil, as darker soil will attract more sun to warm the ground.  I also advised them to cover the plants they wished to protect with a tarp, heavy plastic or old bed linens.

Today the help desk was more of a hope desk.  I almost felt like a garden doctor dispensing a long-shot cure:  give plenty of fluids, put them to bed and call me in the morning.  But even with medical doctors, dispensing hope helps.   As long as there is hope, pateints have a fighting chance. 

One of Kara’s friends recently received a death sentence from her team of doctors.  She has been told there is no hope, that she has no fighting chance.  If she does chemotherapy; she might have 12 months – if she does not, 3 to 6 months.  She has opted to go through chemotherapy.  I don’t know what I would do in her same situation. 

But I’ve taken a fighting stance with my garden.  I sent my plants to bed without anything to drink, though I did cover a few with some old burlap.  I hope it helps.  But, if it doesn’t, I’ll lose no sleep over it.  I have done what I can and the rest is up to nature. 

Freezes happen, and plants will die tonight.  Cancer happens, and people will die tonight.  We can’t prepare for death, no matter how much help we’re given.  So we prepare for life, even if it means 12 months… and even if it means only a few hours, because burlap was insufficient to ward off death from a spring freeze. 

We do what we can.  And hope for the best.  Even for the scary parts like death that no one can help with.  We still hope for the best.