The Seeds Planted by a Quiet Gardener: For My Uncle Oliver

The Seeds Planted by a Quiet Gardener: For My Uncle Oliver

May 12 ,1921- January 24 , 2013

There are some people who enter your life not with a storm, but with a gentle rain. They do not shout; they nourish. They do not demand; they plant. My Uncle Oliver was such a man.

The memories I have of him are sacred, guarded things. They do not shout for attention. They are like a handful of old letters, tied with a ribbon, kept in a box within the deepest roots of my altar. When I was nine years old, we visited him and my Aunt Florene in their big, beautiful home in San Francisco. I was a child with a mind wide open, full of questions about life, the universe, and everything in between. Where others might have dismissed my wonderings as childish imagination, he did not. He fed that open, curious spirit. He encouraged my imagination and spoke to me not as a child to be lectured, but as a soul on a journey to be guided. He was, I see now, planting seeds. So many seeds. And they are blooming right now, in this very moment, into a beautiful bouquet I hold in my heart.

My connection to him, and to many in the Lunt family, has always been a spiritual one. It is a bond that transcends the physical. I feel a deep kinship with my cousin Shanda, a stillborn baby I never met in this life. Yet, I have met her many times. Her spirit is my sister. When I was to be adopted into the Lunt family, I chose the name Shanda to honor her, a connection that exists outside of linear time. These are the threads that weave the tapestry of a family—unseen, but unbreakable.

When I was a young woman, on the cusp of a difficult marriage and carrying my daughter, my Uncle Oliver gave me a gift. It was his book, The Book of Reclamations. Inside, over 500 explanations of the things of science and religion, he sought to unravel the mysteries of the universe and the way things are. On the inside cover, he wrote a message in his beautiful, flourishing handwriting, a message I read so many times that my heart memorized it:

My sweet Elaine, one day things won't make sense, and they will. And one day you'll read this book and it will have some answers you're looking for, and you'll remember that those answers were always there. I love you. Remember, time is not linear.

Love,

Uncle Oliver L. Knapps

That book was lost to a fire, but the seed of those words was not. For years, I have searched for another copy, a physical reminder of his wisdom. And just recently, as if guided by his own hand, a single copy was found. It is on its way to me now. It feels as though he left it there for me, waiting until the student was finally ready. The bond I feel with him now is deeper than it ever was in life. It grows, as the roots of an old oak grow, pressing deeper into the unseen, drawing up nourishment from a source that knows no distance and no end.

His book explored the vast architecture of existence—the grand questions of why we are here and how the universe is ordered. Now, I am doing that work. Every day, I seek to understand my own place in the cosmos, to make sense of my past, my grief, my joy, and my purpose. He showed me that the questions themselves are a form of devotion. And in the same year he left this world, he gave me another gift. He gave me my David. The first good man I ever trusted completely walked into my life, and I cannot help but believe that my Uncle Oliver, from wherever he is, had a hand in that. He planted the philosophy, and then he sent the living proof.

So, I share the most beautiful boon from his passing. He taught me that love is the quiet labor of a lifetime. That the measure of a soul is not in titles or positions, but in the seeds it leaves behind. He was a quiet gardener. And his garden is still blooming.

Thank you, Uncle Oliver. The tea is warm, the fire is lit, and I am still writing.