As many of you know, I live in the City of Boston. The week of April 15, 2013 was a difficult one for us Bostonians. A time when community is most important.

Yes, we ran toward the smoke, the blood, the mangled fencing. We scooped up the injured, set about to make them well, and got on the trail of whoever would do this to us. We stood tall, we supported, we showed our strength. And my goodness, I am so proud of the folks who live with me in this great city.

Yes, we are Boston Strong. But by the weekend, we needed to loosen the toughness a bit, to gather with friends and community. We needed to let out a collective sigh. We got into the garden to awaken the soil and mend our wounds.

Our annual spring community garden cleanup was never more welcomed by our group of gardeners. The tasks at hand—weeding the cobbles, removing a winter’s worth of wind-blown trash from the borders, raking the gravel paths—distracted our minds from the week’s events. Had not the bombing perpetrator been caught the night before, the mood would have been a bit darker, but the work and the disruption from our thoughts would have been as gratefully welcomed.

It had been more than five months since we had gathered as a gardening community. What had happened in our city and in our world since then had been enough tragedy for a lifetime.

But the garden goes on, and the world’s events bring us closer together.

The neighbor who talks your ear off when you only want to stop by for a quick watering of your plot—he’s harmless, even charming if you think about it. The old man whose health should have stopped him from gardening years ago—you don’t mind assisting with clearing out his plot for his spring planting, and you’ll keep a closer eye on him from now on.

This is the community that by definition grows together, and it’s one that will heal together, too.

And while gardening as a community is an act of solidarity and togetherness, the garden plot itself is a refuge. It’s a place to which one retreats. A place where one can both contemplate the here and now and plan for the future. It’s a place as appropriate as any religious space where one can find comfort and solace.

Our growing season is just beginning here in Boston. Our healing begins now, as well.