By Anne C. Woodlen

The wheelbarrow sat in front of the apartment building when I moved in four years ago. I didn’t notice it then.

Maybe it was the next year that I was well enough to notice it. It was old and rusty. The wooden arms were white with age. It had some soil in it, and at some point the manager paid for flowers which the superintendent planted. I began to weed and maintain the plants.

The following year, the manager—a new one—and I went to Home Depot. We chose flowers—mostly pansies—that she paid for out of building funds. I planted them, and added some begonias. As they flowered, I would bring some into my apartment and put others in a vase in the lobby. Each year, as the superintendent prepared the property for winter, he would wheel the barrow into his shop.

Last year, I went to the manager—another new one—to talk about buying flowers. She said that there was no money and they wouldn’t buy flowers. The property is owned and operated by Christopher Community, a branch of the Catholic Church; HUD holds the mortgage.

I bought and planted the flowers. An aide to one of the other tenants contributed to buy some flowers, too. The theme this year was pink and white: begonias, petunias and some little thing that turned out to be a perennial, not an annual. Before I planted, I added a bag of soil because the local soil is basically clay.

I planted and plucked and weeded, and continued to share the cut flowers with the tenants. My garden grew well all summer, but the manager became increasingly hostile. She bought potted plants, placed them around the property, then—when they died—she castigated the tenants for not watering them.

This, the newest of six managers in six years, got the superintendent fired. He had been steadfast in service to the tenants through the previous six managers but, continuing independently on his job and failing to kowtow to the new manager, she engineered his termination by her supervisor. When winter’s chill set in, the new superintendent left the wheelbarrow outside through ten feet of snow and zero-degree temperatures.

This year, spring became a reality last week. The superintendent and I talked. He said the wheelbarrow was too broken-down to stay. I understood. After a winter outside, of course it was broken down. I proposed that as garage sales began to take place in the neighborhood, I would look for a suitable replacement.

Since I travel by power wheelchair and could not bring any tub sort of thing home, I offered to purchase an appropriate vessel if he would pick it up and bring it to the property. He agreed to that plan. I was already looking for sprouts from the perennials and thinking about what other flowers to buy this year.

Today, spring burst out with an overwhelming shout of victory. Pure sunshine and an astounding temperature of 82 degrees! We exulted—we gloried—in the splendid joy of a return to life! Resurrection, renewal and affirmation filled the air.

This afternoon at 5:30, as I wheeled out the front door, headed for a meeting at the local library, the superintendent told me that if there was anything in the wheelbarrow that I wanted, I had to remove it by tomorrow. After that, he was dumping it and throwing the barrow away.

Speechless with shock, I said, “What if I can’t?” Stumbling in my mind, I’m trying to think about what this involves. Shovels. Buckets. Save the perennials. Save the good soil.

He tells me to do it by tomorrow or he’s dumping it.

“But what if I can’t follow your orders? I’m disabled. What if I can’t do it on such short notice?” I am exhausted, and suspect that I will not be in any condition to do physical labor tomorrow.

He snaps, “I’m not giving you an order. I’m just telling you that if you want anything, get it out by tomorrow.”

If I want anything? I want two square feet of soil, set up waist-high, in which I can continue to garden from my wheelchair, and to grow flowers for myself and my neighbors. If I want anything? Dear God, I want to live like other people! Have a garden! Grow flowers!

“But I am disabled,” I cry. “What if I can’t do it by tomorrow?”

The superintendent sneers and turns his back on me.

I am in turmoil. Such a little thing. Such a big thing. I am descended from fourteen generations of farmers. All I want is two square feet of soil in which to grow flowers that grace the apartment building. It is not to be.

I live in St. David’s Court, the only property in Onondaga County that is exclusively independent living for people with disabilities. Neither able-bodied people who might wield a shovel—nor flowers—are allowed to live with us.

The wheelbarrow and I, both broken, are to be thrown on the trash heap.