The Master Gardener’s Legacy By Stacey Brown - Di Sản Của Người Làm Vườn Nguyễn Thành Sơn

They say that love requires spoken words.
What if English failed or Vietnamese blurred?

But Ba, our language grew inside the soil.
We spoke in love of plants, patience, and toil.

Most visits to Ma and Ba’s started the same:
Excited smiles, warm hugs, a playful poke of his cane.

Then off to the garden we together would go,
Pride beaming for the vegetables and roses you’d grow.

Weeding and pruning, lessons from your gentle hand,
That life returns blessings from the seeds that we plant.

You planted Honor,

With quiet strength time simply cannot erase.
It grows in every branch, every flower,
With dignity and grace.

Honor bloomed in the loving care from Anh Quỳnh, cousin Minh Đức, Chị Nguyệt.
Honor and courage held you through your last breath.

You planted Character,
Its roots spread far and wide,
Long before your peach tree and the flowering Mai.

You never saw an "in-law," but welcomed us as your own,
Shaping the family you grew, with character carved in stone.
You planted Determination,
A resilient garden in the droughts and the rains.

By Stacey Brown