Eternal Love in the Garden

Emily and Wayne fell in love hard and fast. When mutual friends set them up on a blind date, they first warned Emily that Wayne had a beard. That was no problem—she loved beards! The four of them went out to dinner, and Emily and Wayne laughed together all night.

“I’d never had that much fun in my life,” she says.

But Wayne was traveling at the time, taking a sabbatical to drive around the country in his old pick-up truck with a tent and a sailboat, spending long stretches of time alone on the water and in the woods.

Emily was divorced and a mother of three, working hard to support them. She had very little time for dating, but when Wayne continued on his way to California, she decided to send him a letter. She didn’t know where he would be in California, so she sent it to a general mailing address for the state. Somehow, it found him. He called her right away.

Emily had two requirements if she were to ever consider marriage again: He had to love ice cream as much as she did, and he had to love his mother. Wayne was a big guy, at six feet and four inches tall. He loved ice cream and he could eat, a lot of it. He also adored his mother.

They were married for 53 years. He became a father to her three children, and together, they had many dogs whom they adored.

They often hiked as a family, and Wayne continued spending stretches of time alone in the woods. In their backyard in Washington, they planted a circle garden that’s 50 feet wide and thick with wild strawberries, rhododendrons, and azaleas.

When Wayne’s father died, they spread his ashes in their garden, along with the ashes of each of their dogs who passed.

Wayne didn’t like to talk about death. But he did tell Emily that when he died, she should stick him in the ground and put a picnic table there so people could sit and eat lunch.

She could call it “The Wayne L. Fischer Memorial Picnic Grove.”

Emily had read a few articles about human composting. She was aware of the process becoming legal in Washington but assumed it would be prohibitively expensive. When Wayne died, she decided to look into it more.

“Oh, it was perfect for him,” she says.

Emily loved the idea of Wayne becoming soil, to be so connected to the natural places where he felt most at peace. When she learned that any soil she didn’t take herself would be spread on land in the Olympic Peninsula, it felt just right. “That’s where he went on his adventures.”

Emily spread some of the soil in the circle garden in their backyard.

“He’s with his dogs and his dad.”

Emily is out there every day chasing the dogs, and she always takes a moment to visit the garden. She feels connected to him when she’s spending time out there, knowing he’s present in everything that continues to grow.

Later this year, Emily plans to move in with her son’s family in Idaho. It will be hard to leave this home that Wayne loved so much. She found this house herself, many years ago, when Wayne was away on a trip. Before he got back, she bought it, knowing he’d love that it was surrounded by towering trees.

Idaho’s landscape is much different than Washington’s. But Emily’s daughter-in-law is a skilled gardener, and is already drafting plans for them to work on together. Emily is going to bring a bucket of Wayne’s soil from the circle garden, and with the help of her daughter-in-law, she’ll start something new.

She’ll hang wind chimes and she plans on putting a picnic table out there, too.