I stand, clippers in hand to make sense of waywardness—hushed, pale, buds no larger than my fingernail and deep, throaty leaves full as my fist. Unpacked cartons of winter clothes, camping gear, year books, assorted comforters, are scattered, defiant, dare me to create order inside the house we moved into last week. But I, with my wide-brimmed hat, spend the day trying to tame an overgrown, overrun bush blocking the path to the front door.

I’m mid-cut, standing in an unwieldy pile of branches and greenery, when I hear, “I can help. I’m Bill, from next door.”

I turn to find a tall, white-haired gardener; he’s gloved, armed with loppers, pruners, saws, and shears. Bill moves in with precision and tenderness. Where I’ve been cutting and clipping with the subtlety of a bulldozer, he examines each slip or limb before making an incision. “Bill, you work like a surgeon,” I say.

He smiles, instructs me where and how to make the next snip. He circles the bush, ensuring those who approach the front door of the house will find something pleasant, not the hacked-up horror I was creating. When at last he’s pleased with his work, we collaborate to bundle the branches and leaves. He gathers his tools and says, “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

***

At dinner I tell my family about our new neighbor. We walk out to admire the cleared path to the front door and the pruned bush. Everyone agrees this is not only a vast improvement, but it looks like a professional job. At dusk I’m in the living room, tackling a box labeled puzzles and games, when I look out the front window. There’s Bill, back at the bush. He has only one small clipper and he appears to be doing some fine tuning, a few errant leaves here and there.

He doesn’t see me as I watch him work until darkness settles. He gathers the cut leaves and walks to his house next door.

***

A few days later, I’ve sorted my kitchen sufficiently to bake some banana bread, which I plan to give to Bill as a thank you on behalf of the bush. After it cools, I walk the short distance next door, admire the garden bursting with perennials and shrubs without so much as a common red geranium or orange day lily. I ring the bell. His wife, whom I haven’t yet met, answers the door. We introduce ourselves. I explain the reason for the banana bread and my admiration of their garden and Bill’s pruning skills. “He’s like a surgeon,” I say.

Bev smiles.

“I mean it. He was so focused and meticulous. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Oh, Claire. He is a surgeon. An orthopedic surgeon. Retired three weeks ago. He’s searching for anything and everything to cut. He’s trimmed everything he possibly can in our garden. He’s on the lookout for anything that he can take a blade to.”

***

Bill soon became my consultant for what I named “the dark side of gardening,” because gardening isn’t only about growing. It’s also knowing about when to cut back, trim, make room for new growth, and bid farewell to plants that don’t belong. Maybe it was his decades of being a physician that allowed him to be dispassionate, to say, “Claire, that aster won’t survive in that spot. It’s too shady and wet. You need to pull it out and try it in a different spot.”

We worked as a neighborly pair, discussing gardening, but also football, meditation, and our families, for almost twenty years. Sometimes, I would come home from work to find a small pile of cut branches next to a shrub or tree. Bill had done some trimming without me. I never complained.

Bill’s garden remained a masterpiece, and mine, well, it remained under control, in large part thanks to Bill. Even when Bill was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, he was outside and in the garden as much as possible, although I no longer saw him working while I was having my morning coffee or while the sun was setting.

Before he was ill, I would see Bill outside with gardening gloves, long-sleeved shirt, straw hat and boots, no matter the weather. He was so eager to be in the garden, he’d be clearing away decomposing muck as blades of grass barely emerged from Michigan’s gray, sooty, snow.

***

It was mid-May, and our adjoining yards were lush with spring’s renewal. The yellows of daffodils and forsythia had already faded, and the native dogwood Bill helped me plant (and prune appropriately) outside my kitchen two years earlier, was in full bloom. But I hadn’t seen Bill outside for at least a week. I was worried. I was standing in my back yard examining a two-story spruce tree. The bottom branches were brown, and brittle needles carpeted the ground underneath the tree.

“Claire, go in my garage and find the big loppers. The one with the red handles.” I turned to see Bill walking slowly towards me. “But first bring me a chair from your deck and put it next to the tree, will you?” I could hear his wheezing and breathlessness. I gladly brought him the chair, walked to his garage, returned with the red-handled loppers.

“Okay," he said, "now I’m going to sit here while I tell you how to remove a few of the bottom branches. This will improve airflow to the entire tree.”

He instructed me in the three-cut method, reminded me of the importance of living things’ ability to breathe. Yes, even trees.

As I left for work the next morning, I saw Bev as she bent over to retrieve her newspaper. She looked up as I backed out of the driveway and walked over to my car, “Bill decided to call hospice yesterday, Claire. We’ve been talking about it for a while. He’s made his decision.” She had dark circles under eyes.

“I’m so sorry Bev. Of course, let me know what I can do,” I said, and reached out of my car window to grasp her arm for a moment before she turned to walk into her house.

For the next two weeks, cars came and went all hours of day and night. I recognized a tall, white-haired gentleman who must have been Bill’s brother sitting on the front step. Not wanting to intrude, I simply waved, touching my hand to my heart. Bill took his final breaths a few days later at home, surrounded by Bev and his family.

The dogwood I planted outside my kitchen with Bill’s help still flourishes. Every May its shameless display of white blossoms reminds me of Bill, because after the last of the petals drops, I know it’s time to climb up a ladder and begin to prune.