It was during my sophomore year in college when I first encountered the garden behind the old library. I had been wandering aimlessly, trying to clear my head from the stress of my piling assignments and the suffocating pressure to succeed. The library was a place I often visited because its silent walls offered comfort. But that day, I ventured outside and found myself in a secluded spot less tended by gardeners and more by time and neglect.
There was a worn stone bench amidst a chaos of wildflowers and towering hedges that threatened to reclaim their space. This place had clearly not seen attention in years, yet it held a peculiar charm. It was here that I met her, Lily—a fellow student whose presence in the garden seemed as natural as the sun hanging in the sky. She was there every time I returned, which soon became daily, as if waiting for spring to coax life back to the world around us.
Lily and I never spoke. Our relationship was one of shared space and silent acknowledgment. I would sit on the bench, she on the grass, her sketchbook on her knees, pencil dancing across its surface. Her drawings were vibrant and full, unlike the withered foliage around us. It seemed she breathed life into the garden with each stroke, a stark contrast to my own struggles with the written word.
Throughout that spring, I found solace in this unspoken companionship. My life outside became increasingly chaotic; my parents were divorcing, and I felt like an outsider at home. My sister and I were asked to choose sides in a battle we never initiated. The garden became my retreat, a place where the burden temporarily lifted.
One day, I arrived to find Lily absent, the garden devoid of its usual vibrancy. I tried to focus on my writing but found my thoughts spiraling back to my fractured home. Days passed, and the garden felt lonelier. No drawings appeared like they usually did, propped up against the bench for anyone to admire afterward.
In that emptiness, I realized how much I had relied on her presence, and it scared me. Was she facing a similar unrest in her life? Was her absence permanent? I had never asked because words were never a part of what we shared. I resolved to find her—or, at least, try to make sense of my dependency on this seemingly ephemeral connection.
Weeks turned into months. Spring faded into summer, and I began to remove myself from the garden, reluctantly confronting the changes at home. My sister and I decided not to choose sides in our parents’ war, a decision met with anger but eventually, unsettling acceptance on their part. I learned to navigate those emotional waters without the sanctuary of that garden, though memories of it lingered in quiet moments of reflection.
Autumn came quickly, followed by winter. Life progressed in relentless rhythm and, eventually, the garden slipped into the background of my memory. It wasn’t until the following spring, while standing in a university corridor, that I noticed a series of framed sketches on the walls. Each drawing was an echo of the forgotten garden, vivid blossoms and sunlit paths, collected from lingering afternoons overlooked by the modern world.
At the bottom of one frame, marked with the artist’s signature, was the name I had never spoken—Lily. Her work had been discovered and heralded by those who must have seen the beauty of a hidden place transformed by her gaze and graphite. I stood there, feeling the stark absence of one-sided conversations and shared silences.
As much as it pained me to never reconnect with the person who had offered me so much unspoken comfort, I understood that our time together served its purpose. She had been a muse uniting fragments of my scattered world, a lesson I learned without the aid of textbooks or study guides. I walked away from the exhibit with a paradoxical sense of closure.
The garden taught me to find beauty in neglected spaces and to appreciate moments for what they are—temporary yet transformative. I once believed myself alone in carrying the weight of family tribulations, but the truth lay in every person facing battles unseen, silently coexisting in the same space.
From time to time, I return to the thought of that stone bench and the vibrant drawings it bore witness to. In those moments, I am grateful for Lily, her art, and the garden where she waited every spring. It was there that I found resilience amid entropy, painted quietly by a stranger’s hand.
