“That January my mom got me the gift of a grow light and some seeds. As the spring came, I watched these seeds transform and die. The seed disappears and (with) the sprout comes a new life. To see that whole natural cycle play out was so healing to me.”
“It took a year for the grief to slowly dissipate. I didn’t used to think of myself as a philosophical person. (Now) I’m looking at the world constantly. Our culture does not want us to be acquainted with our humanity. It wants to feed us information as consumers. Of what? Of crap, stupid quips, nothing substantial. There’s a lot more than meets the eye and if we’re just quiet and look around, it’s there for us.”
A Dayton transplant from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Antoon was in the ROTC at the University of Pittsburgh before commissioning into the Air Force, landing her at Wright-Patt. She went back to school with her GI Bill, receiving a master’s in English from UD with a concentration in Second Language Learning for immigrants and refugees. Antoon, 32, lives in St. Anne’s Hill with husband Bashar, a mechanical engineer who came to Dayton in 2009 as an Iraqi refugee, and their now 2- and 3-year-old sons.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
FINDING ROOT
Before their loss, Antoon discovered a grassy double lot near their home, and applied for it through Lot Links, a program for acquiring abandoned properties. “In 2021, we got the deed and that was my second year of growing seeds. That’s when the idea really landed and found root. We cut some trees down, put a fence up, and I asked Bashar if he was OK with sinking a little personal money. It has all the right conditions — decent sunlight, a water source.”
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
Antoon runs a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that sells mixed bouquets to subscribers. “The spring one’s going to be really amazing. I’ve got over 1,200 bulbs and tubers. It will be so colorful and stunning. In the summer, I’m going to focus on a good mixture of color. Ranunculus, anemones, specialty narcissus, dahlias. If protected over winter in our climate they can do really well, but they have to be babied. I enjoy the trial-and-error process.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
WRANGLING CHAOS
Antoon’s day is “centered around two little human beings. My day starts a little before 6, and I barely try to get myself ready in some comfy clothes to be able to wrangle my little guys. Breakfast is chaos. They take two bites and are done. I used to love the mornings and breakfast. Not anymore (laughs). It’s constant destruction. After they eat something basic like cereal or waffles, then they’ll be off playing.”
TEACHING TIME
Antoon’s focus pre-gardening was in foreign language and culture. She now teaches a couple of mornings a week in the adult ESL program at St. John’s United Church of Christ on Third Street. Her interest in helping immigrants and refugees integrate into new communities began in 2017 when she was on active duty in Afghanistan. “The Afghans that I got to talk to had great English. Looking at the lack of infrastructure, I (wondered) how they mastered English so well. A lot of them were resourceful and dedicated. It fed my love of cultures and languages and looking at human ingenuity.”
EXCURSIONS
Most days Antoon spends with her children. “They ask me in the morning, ‘What are we doing today?’ I didn’t expect a 3-year-old to want to know the schedule of the day! I usually take them on some excursion. Dayton has so much to offer. We have a Boonshoft Museum membership. We live right by Bomberger Park, which just got new playground equipment. Because we live in St. Anne’s, we love to walk in our neighborhood.”
ME TIME
“We come back, and nap time is kind of my favorite part of the day. I get to go out to the Backlot and do some work. The spring through summer is the big seed-starting time. As I’m starting to harvest flowers, I’m simultaneously starting seeds. As they mature, I’m planting them out while harvesting flowers continuously. That’s the direction I want to take the business in. I love being in the Backlot and talking to the neighbors. I love Dayton.”
CUDDLE TIME
“I mosey back in. One of them will wake up first, and I get to cuddle him and read books. We do the Dolly Parton Library and they’ve got so many books at this age. Then the other one will wake up, and we do a little more reading and then they’re out of that sleepy zone and ready to rock and roll.”
COOKING STRATEGIES
“Usually, I’ll turn the TV on so I can make dinner at like 2 and then just re-heat it because when they’re cranky and hungry at like 4 — that is not the time I’m ready to be harassed constantly for food while I’m trying to cook (laughs).”
BUBBLES & BUTTERFLIES
“Once dinner is ready, we try to go outside again. We go in the backyard. We love to catch bugs, draw with chalk, blow bubbles. Kids just love bubbles! This was the summer of butterflies. There have been like 10 chrysalises we’ve gotten to watch emerge. That’s been so fun to have the butterfly walk on our hands and then wave bye to it.”
LABOR OF LOVE
“When my husband comes home from work, we’ll eat dinner together. Again, that’s a labor of love. My husband will read a kid’s Bible story to them. We’ll talk about it. It’s amazing how much they catch on, because then we reenact the stories. Play is so cool to help kids understand these stories and remember them.”
BREAK TIME
“After dinner I usually ask for a break. My husband does something with them, whether he takes them to visit his parents or goes to the park so I can just clean and enjoy some silence.”
SHARING
“Bedtime is at 7 sharp because I need my sanity. That’s when (Bashar) shares about his day and I get to hear about his struggles or what was good. Then I recount with him the disciplinary issues that he should be aware of (laughs) or the surprising things that they said, which are growing.”
READ ALOUD
“We make a point to read out loud once a week to each other. We just finished a long book, it took us months, but it was so enjoyable to have that on the calendar.”
A NEW SEASON
“I enjoy the evening. I love the fall, it’s my favorite season. The smells of the earth, the colors. Everything becomes so vibrant right before it dies. Wow, what’s the spiritual significance of that?”
“It will be 4 years since we lost her; and I’m so thankful for all the healing that has happened, because it was a very long road to accepting the reality of death. Society doesn’t want to talk about infant death, about elders. We want to put them in a home and have our civilization of healthy, able people, but not focus on the difficult and the ugly. This is the natural course of everyone’s life. We’re not born to be immortal. We’re born to die.”
THE PARTICULARS
Find out more about CSA Shares, custom orders and flower-arranging workshops at https://www.backlotbuds.com/. Follow along on Instagram and Facebook.
Resources for grief support in the Dayton area include Ohio’s Hospice of Dayton and Oak Tree Corner.
About the Author
