Each time we return to the Norfolk International Airport, we are greeted by an old friend. It sits next to the runway, waiting patiently for our arrival calmly waving in the wind. It’s been there since 1938, the same year the airport was built. Most visitors drive right past it without paying it any attention. There’s always so many other things going through people’s minds after landing at the airport, who can blame them for not recognizing the natural oasis beckoning them to visit?
This wonderful, living, everchanging friend was started by the hard work of over 200 African-Americans, mostly women, as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression. Laboring for .25 cents an hour, they planted 4,000 azaleas and 2,000 rhododendrons after removing dozens of trees and hauling out stumps from the swamp. Sadly, due to segregation, the workers who built what would become the wondrous and wonderful Norfolk Botanical Garden, were not permitted to enjoy the creation of their labor until many years later. I think of them each time we land at the airport or visit the Garden. Their sacrifices and hardships are not forgotten.
Recently, we walked through the Garden several times and it was so alive in every imaginable way. When we travel, Norfolk Botanical Garden provides such a warm welcome back home and when we can’t travel, it is our go to place to reflect and dream.
Here are some of Michelle’s reflections on the beauty of this garden of life created 84 years ago in Norfolk, Virginia.
#1
We walk at Botanical Garden inside the
bounty of Spring…
azaleas and bees
lily pads and sunning turtles
budding trees and rustling birds
everything nesting or flirting
or mating in the sun and in the blossoms.
We sit on a bench bought
in memory of someone’s
mother who loved the gardens.
We eat chocolate beside the lake
sitting still in the sunshine like the
turtles on the broken trunk of a tree.
Everything dies, trees and mothers,
but there will always be flowers in
the month
of May.
#2
The enormous tree hid a thousand
secrets with its boughs bent to the
ground and its thick leaves hiding a
world inside. I imagined fairies and doors
to other places, intrigue and kisses.
I did not imagine a
snake hiding and watching as I bent to
smell the vanilla bloom. But there he was
at my feet with a greeting in his eyes and
curiosity his only intent.
I backed away.
The kindest gesture I could muster was
my own retreat.
One of my favorite places to go.After my parents passed away last year… On the drive home to Florida we stopped for a few hours it was my daughter’s first visit and she adored it! The lily pads were her favorite and the family of turtles we found ❤️ Thank you for the story ❤️