When Carol Wall met Giles Owita, she was embarrassed by her family's yard, but not enough to get her fingernails dirty. Their relationship, chronicled in Mister Owita's Guide to Gardening, is not only a primer on how to prune the azaleas, but a gentle lesson in patience, overcoming adversity and treasuring the joys of life.
A breast cancer patient, teacher, wife and mother, Wall resisted the pink-ribbon mantra to be upbeat: "Like the situation in my yard, the more I tried to ignore them, the more my fears grew and blossomed into anger." Eventually, she recognized the sorry state of her suburban Virginia yard and approached her neighbor's gardener for advice. They initially communicated through notes, and Mr. Owita's formal writing reflected his intellect. Wall discovered his background and the genesis of his gardening skill, as well as their shared trials.
Mr. Owita was actually Dr. Owita, a Kenyan immigrant to Virginia; he and his wife earned Ph.D.s, his in horticulture. Unable to secure jobs in their fields, they worked to provide for their two sons and to bring their daughter from Kenya. As Wall struggled with her illness, her friendship with Mr. Owita gave them both sustenance--he, too, was sick, and their gardening "seminars" were also metaphors for spiritual reflection.
The blossoming of the friendship between Wall and Mr. Owita unfolded through the seasons; as her plantings matured, she allowed optimism and gratitude to take root, despite the sorrows that befell them all. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco