Midway through 2020, I started planting seeds in my backyard. My daughter said, “You’ve wanted to do this for years. Do you like it?” “Yes,” I said. “I love it.” At the time, I didn’t realize I was growing more than tomatoes. Overwhelmed by the pandemic, my mother’s worsening dementia and the painfully quiet demise of a decades-long relationship, I was sowing a future. My head down and hands busy, I could hope. “You seem calmer even though everything is more difficult,” my daughter said. Yes. Planting new seeds is hard. Realizing old seeds are no longer growing is harder. — Karen Amster-Young