Planting Along The Verge

May 29, 2010

This photo was taken sometime in 1978…

me and Barnaldo on the deck of
our house in Seoul, Korea…
























picking each and every dead leaf off of my one plant. I’m trying to remember who took this picture. It had to be one of two people. John or Harold. Most likely it was Harold, I’ll ask him when I see him in September he remembers everything in great detail. 

Another life that was. I was 22 years old just moved to Korea after living in Taiwan for four years. I hated Korea from the moment I stepped foot off that plane. Poor Barnaldo, that’s the black furry beast in the picture. I found him in Taiwan and moved him with us from Taijung City to Seoul and then later to NY where he died in my arms at the Animal Medical Center in NY. I remember lifting him and putting him in the car and driving like crazy across that Queensboro Bridge after he was hit by a car in front of the house I grew up in, only to have the young Doc on duty that night take me in his arms and tell me Barn was gone. No country Vet that was. He treated me as if I’d lost my kid, which I felt like I had. I never imagined I could feel worse than that.  

I was mistaken.