Many years ago, I sat visiting with my friend and early mentor James Scudder as he lay on his deathbed in Park Hill. James smoked Kent cigarettes — lots of them — and now it was too late. But that day, we were not talking about cigarettes but about gardening. James had lived with his mother until she died the year before. Their yard was full of flowers, a testament to a mother and son’s talent and passion for cultivating beauty. 

In the fall of her last year, James’ mother planted a sack full of daffodils. The plants would bloom in March, but she knew she was dying and would never see them. She took pleasure in the work, James said, planting flowers even though she would be gone before they bloomed. That was what she did.

That story has stuck with me over the years. I find that as I grow older and my horizon shortens, there is a temptation to discard long-term projects. Two years ago, I planted a small orchard of pawpaw trees, the only subtropical fruit native to Arkansas. The literature described the fruit’s flavor as a cross between a mango and a banana. For me, the flavor was unlike anything I had ever tasted. To taste something totally new when you are past 70 years old is a rare delight. The problem is that pawpaws usually take between seven and 10 years to mature. I could be well past 80 before I see my first mottled green fruit — if I’m still here. 

Anticipating death tempts us to abandon life’s long game for a less joyous, short-term outcome. Life becomes a monoculture of annuals, devoid of perennials. It becomes poorer as projects that bring delight are discarded because their fruition is too far down the road.

I love the foxy, wild flavor of muscadines. Unlike domestic grapes, muscadines don’t need endless spraying, and a single vine can yield 50 pounds of fruit. I have been researching trellises for muscadines, eyeing an open, 150-foot row in my field next to a new planting of blackberries. But I will spend the first year training the vines up 5 feet to the horizontal wire, the second year training them horizontally along that same wire, and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll see fruit the third year. I’ll be 77 then, of that I am certain. But will I still be up to harvesting 350 pounds of muscadines in August? Less certain.

I have raised heirloom tomatoes for nearly 40 years. When I was young, I would multitask, working on my tan while I worked on my tomatoes. I have the skin cancers and wrinkles to prove it. Now I raise over half my vines hydroponically in protected high tunnels. But even with the added production from this technology, I cannot keep up with demand. So this fall, I decided to convert two of my largest high tunnels into heated and cooled greenhouses with a goal of raising heirlooms year-round. I finished the conversion in mid-February and planted about 400 tomato vines the next week.

It was stupid expensive. 

Perhaps I will have it paid off in five years when I’m 78. Or not. It just depends on how much extra production I can generate between each November to May.

I hope to be sowing until my death day. Like James’ mother, it’s what I do. Perhaps I will be there for the harvest, but I know death will interrupt at some point. If I yielded to the temptation to swap long-term big dreams for short-term little ones, then I would be letting the anticipation of death hollow out my life. No otherworldly tasting pawpaws when I’m 80, no sweet purple muscadines at 77, no dead-ripe heirloom tomatoes in February. 

I hope I will still be here for the harvest, but even if I am not, the dreaming, the planting, the nurturing and the anticipation of something wondrous is worth the uncertainty. I know death will take my life. But I don’t have to let it steal the richness of living.