friends

Warlord

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / Leave a comment

West Virginia lost a true believer this week.

He was my friend, and even if you did not know him you need to know that he was your friend.  He was your friend because he cared about the future health and well-being of the place we call home, and he was never afraid to stand up and fight for that future.

The founder of Create West Virginia said this:  “Jeff was always among the first to volunteer to speak or help.  He was an early and passionate member of our team.  He had such passion for West Virginia and its creative potential. I will miss his truth-telling, his fearless willingness to tell it like it is, and his sense of humor and caring.”

As for me, I see a special magic in the symmetry of this loss and the two stories on Esse Diem prior to this one.  The wood and wool goat figure in the garden came from Jeff’s business Stray Dog Antiques.  My husband brought it home as a surprise gift for our baby who was due just a few weeks later.  And Joe Strummer looked a reporter straight in the eye and said that when they wrote about him, to be sure to get his title right:  Joe Strummer, Punk Warlord.  “Warlord is all one word.”

Jeffrey Miller, Green World Warlord.

All one word.

Life’s Own Rules

/ Elizabeth Gaucher / 2 Comments

My friend Rick is an avid gardener.  As I drove past his house on the East End of Charleston a few years ago he called me to the yard and ran about with a spade asking, “Do you want this?  What about some of this?  These are great….oh, and these!”

I had just moved into a new house with a rather “Lowe’s Home Improvement Center” feel to the landscape.  I was chomping at the bit to bring heirloom perennials, herbs, ornamental specimen trees and pass-along plants to the space — the spontaneous encounter with Rick was perfect.

Around 5 years in the ground, this little plant blooms for the first time.

So this little guy has hung in there for 5 years, but has never done much more than poke out of the earth in the spring to say hello.  I had no idea it even could flower……and yet here we go.  Delicate, nearly hair-width stalks with tiny yellow buds.  Lovely.

The garden is a reminder of all things life.  You never know to what potential the roots reach, what genetic material is invisible to your eyes, and what the ideal conditions and time will produce.