The Secret Garden

“I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us.” Frances Hodgson Burnett

By: Gabriela Yareliz

When I was a teen, we regularly visited an office that offered certain services. The services were not for me, and I would sit in a waiting room for long periods of time. I remember the place had yellowish walls. It was clean, bright and had good snacks. I looked forward to going to this place even though I would just sit and wait.

The regular movie of choice on the corner television was The Secret Garden, one of my favorite books. I spent hours of my life watching this movie on repeat. Given the circumstances in my life, it was fitting. Definitely a comfort movie. No matter how many times I have watched this movie, it never gets old. It just doesn’t. There are so many lessons we can take from it about life.

I was fortunate, later in life, to share this book with my stepdaughter. Its emotional weight for me I think was somehow transmitted, and she understood.

The garden—

The things that lie dormant. The beauty waiting to burst forward. The healing that awaits us all.

What has been locked away for you? Sarah Ban Breathnach says, “We all have a ‘Secret Garden’ in the depths of our soul and the state of that garden depends upon the health and vitality of our inner life, not our outer one. When, through death, debt, divorce, or illness, we are abruptly pulled away from the life we expected to be living, planned for and dreamed about, and suddenly find ourselves in an alien landscape, it is staggering to all our senses: the five physical senses as well as the two spiritual senses-intuition and wonder. What’s so shocking is that this new reality has no timetable.”

Every day, we can take out some weeds, redirect a vine, plant a seed and place hope in the future in the hands of the present. And little by little, a space, a life, a world can be transformed.