Grandfather Lost

Two gardens, vast as football fields to the eyes of a child. Hybrid tomatoes, kissed pink and yellow, lined the middle rows like constellations in dirt. Their bounty glowed with the pride of decades. This is what I remember — my grandfather, bent in devotion to soil and sun, a man of rhythm and ritual, his hands shaping the earth into order. He was a Virgo, the truest green thumb. And the envy of every garden in town was his harvest. But it wasn’t just vegetables that grew — it was something else he was trying to hold steady in his bones.

Papaw worked like a metronome, never missing a beat, sunup to sundown — feeding a family of nine sons and daughters from the land. In the summers, we all returned to that land like geese to their imprint, hands busy picking what his love had seeded. Women in the kitchen, the metal fan a dangerous roar, the slam of the old screen door like a hymn, jars popping tight with the heat of August and the ache of tradition. I wish I had asked more. Sat closer. Learned how his hands spoke to the soil. But he felt so untouchable then — like a relic. Like a tree too tall to climb.

What could my grandfather have been? What light did he have before life tried to drown it? The garden was the best of him. A canvas where the rage of a violent, impoverished youth was turned — as best he could — into something living. Into a kind of peace. He couldn’t overcome all of it. That trauma-fired temper — it scorched through sometimes, burning up what he also loved. But now, I can see him for what he truly was. A man sculpted by survival, trying to give more than he was given.

His rows were never just for vegetables. They were for order. The lineage he came from — patriarchal and blood-soaked, yes — held in it both shadow and safety. The terrible and the tender. It’s easy to see only the curse in that legacy, to forget the complexity. Yes, the past held harm. But it also held the masculine in its higher forms: structure, discipline, protection, loyalty. We throw it all out now — too quick to forget that much of what holds us up came from strong backs and calloused hands.

I found notes from a Huachuma ceremony tucked in the turquoise book I carry, where Spirit showed me how far I’ve come. And how little reverence we sometimes give to the practices that shaped us. Like gardening. Like men who plant with devotion and prune with purpose. What once seemed ordinary now glows with wisdom — seedlings stretching toward light, systems that support life, a thousand interconnected parts that remind us: we need the collective. We need the rows. We need the rituals.

Why do we forget the quiet men? The strong ones who never raised a fist? Who never looked at a girl with hunger in their eyes? I’ve known those men too — Mister Flowers, the two men from Columbus who hired me with kindness, the sweet AEP man who gave me a break on my power bill one hot, broke summer. Not every man was a monster. And strong men are rarely violent. Weakness lashes out. True strength? It holds. It protects. It softens in the right places.

These days, men are getting a lot of heat for the past — for patriarchy and the wounds it caused. And I get it. I’ve lived those wounds in my own body. But I’ve also known the beauty of the masculine. The steadiness. The safety. The unspoken support that shows up not in grand gestures but in quiet, everyday provision.

Father energy — at its highest frequency — is protective, benevolent, and stable. It holds its arms out so you can fall apart safely. And I’ve come to know that energy, not just in others, but in myself.

Because I have come full circle.

Where once I mirrored the worst of what I had seen — the rage, the volatility, the uncontrolled fire of untended masculine — I now rise in a different way. I have softened the sharp edges of my past. I have exchanged chaos for rhythm, tantrum for tending. What once ruled me now serves me: my masculine energy is no longer a flame out of control, but a hearth that warms. I’ve alchemized the wild into something sacred — not to tame it, but to give it purpose.

Now I live inside a routine that holds me gently, and I extend that same support to others. I have built new rows — not in the garden, but in my life. And just like my grandfather, I grow things. Not with the same hands, but with the same heart.

And in that, he is not lost at all. He is in every seed I plant, every boundary I keep, every moment I choose love over fear. He is in the order I now tend, and the peace I now know.

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Papaw’s Hands

I remember the mandolin,

how small it felt in my hands,

how big yours seemed —

weathered by soil,

creased with time,

yet gentle

as a whisper through cornfields.

You didn’t say much,

just sat beside me,

tuning the strings like breath,

showing me slow,

fingertip by fingertip,

how to find the music

inside the silence.

You could play anything —

guitar, fiddle, heartstrings —

and you did,

with a patience

only the earth could teach.

I thought you were made of stone then.

Now I know

you were made of sunrays and sweat,

roots and rhythm,

seed and sound.

Your garden was your masterpiece,

but so was this moment —

your hands guiding mine,

your music

planting itself in me.

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Tina Chabot

e-RYT 500

Ayurvedic Health Counselor

Tina Chabot School of Yoga