Memory garden is a way to remember

Yard of the Week

NANCY M. GOSS

EVERYDAY LIVING EDITOR

Scrapy Louis and Marilyn Cook Barnes of Williams Hollow, Pikeville, have an exquisite garden plot set aside in their front yard. It is a memory garden for their daughter, Rachel, who died in 2005 of Hodgkins/lymphoma.

“We started on the garden a month after Rachel died,” Marilyn said. “We both worked on it and the grandchildren helped. That first year was the prettiest.”

The garden blooms with many rose bushes, hydrangea, hostas, calla lilies, day lilies, marigolds, geraniums, coleus, and impatiens.

“To have Rachel remembered is so important,”Marilyn said. To this end the garden also features a flag with the words, “Rachel's Garden,” a waterproofed picture of Rachel, and a stone engraved with “Rachel Catherine Barnes, July 9, 1983, July 28, 2005.”

Adding more interest to the garden are a pond with a flowing fountain, stones of various sizes and shapes, figurines, a bench, and lighting for nightime viewing.

“We planted a weeping cherry tree, but it didn't make it,” Scrapy said. “We're still adding to it.”

The Barneses had two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel. Rebecca, who lives in Lexington, is married to Steve Slone and they have four children: Sarah, Andrew, Alex and Shaun. She works for UK and since Rachel's death, part-time with the Leukemia/Lymphoma Association.

Rachel was diagnosed with Hodgkins/lymphoma in December 2001 when she was a freshman at Morehead State University.

“She came home for Thanksgiving break and was feeling bad,” Marilyn said. “She had a cough and was itching. I saw a knot above her collarbone and made an appointment with the doctor.”

Rachel underwent a CAT scan and biopsy. A mass the size of a grapefruit was found in her chest. She had chemo for six months and 20 radiation treatments.

“They pretty much guaranteed us that was the end of it,” Marilyn said. “Then six months later she relapsed. It was in her lung and they had to remove part of it.”

Rachel went through a stem cell transplant, using her own stem cells, followed by seven days of chemotherapy at UK.

“They said it was 100 times the amount of chemo they would normally give,” Marilyn said. “The original mass went away, but the cancer came back in other places, always in her chest.”

Throughout her illness, when she was able, Rachel continued her education, attending Prestonsburg Community College. She also worked part-time at Food City.

Then she relapsed again.

“By this time, she refused to go to the doctor,” Marilyn said. “She was really, really sick. Finally, she consented to another stem cell transplant, this time with Rebecca's stem cells. They matched perfectly.”

But a cure was not meant to be. Rachel died July 28, 2005. She is buried at Annie E. Young Cemetery.

“I just play it over and over in my mind,” Marilyn said. “You say you're not going to, but you do. I get out there and dig around in the garden and it helps ... it's like therapy.”

“After two years, it helps to talk about it,” Scrapy added.

Marilyn is the daughter of the late James and Eulah Cook. Scrapy is from Louisville, the son of the late Joe and Bertha Barnes. He said he came to Pikeville to attend Pikeville College and never left.

He is a mortgage loan collector at Community Trust Bank, where he has worked since 1978, when it was Pikeville National Bank. On Sunday mornings, he can be heard on “Gospel Music Time” on Radio Station WXCC 96.5 FM.

Marilyn retired from teaching in the Floyd County School System after 26 years. She still substitutes and tutors in math occasionally.

“It gives me something to do,” she says.

Marilyn has also made a Web page on the Internet in Rachel's memory.

“Rachel was a computer whiz,” Scrapy said. “One time she bought all the parts of a computer and built one. That was her major in school, computer technology and networking.”

On the Web page, people can light a candle in memory of Rachel or write a tribute or memory. Another part of the site shows a timeline of her life, along with photographs. Scrapy said over 70,043 people have accessed the Web site so far.

The beautiful memory garden in the front yard is another way the Barnses remember.

Everyday Living editor Nancy M. Goss can be reached via e-mail at ngoss@setel.com.