Ever since I started writing a garden column, I considered penning one entitled “Ask Michael”. That’s because when friends ask me gardening questions, my immediate response is usually – I have no idea. My education is derived from trial and error, the common sense that is one of nature’s primary ingredients, from the inheritance of agrarian cultures, the few forced tasks of my youth, and from what we learned as children when the out-of-doors was our playground. Beyond that, I’m not entirely unstudied, but my knowledge is limited. When I need to know something, I research it, or I simply ask Michael. And this is the advice I’ve given others through the years: read, or ask Michael.

Initially, my article was to include all of the advice Michael Chapel has ever given me, yet that quickly became an exhaustive list. And indistinguishable. Because what I learned from him became what I knew; he was a thorough and patient teacher. Instruction ranged from the simple, such as the orientation of peonies when you plant them, to matters as complex as installing a water garden: in the mud! Yes, during a rain storm, when gardeners can sculpt the dirt to form around the pool to maintain a flat surface. In between there were all manner of explanations, techniques, analysis, and cures. Why a certain tree perished or a non-invasive became rampant, how to deal with woodchucks or deltas, what caused a quagmire or a rootstock revert, where to situate a shed or place a willow.  Last summer he explained the failure of my irises to flourish, instructing me on when to remove the rhizomes from the soil, how to correctly cut the foliage, when to replant them and at what depth, and proposed the alternate solution for the unlikely success of transplanting an old rhododendron.

Of course, advice was not limited to the garden. Quite the contrary.  When the generator broke or a brick fell off the chimney, he would tell us what was wrong, what caused it, how to fix it, who to call, and the approximate cost.  He was the person we contacted in an emergency and the emergency contact for whoever was housesitting whenever we left town. We knew he would always respond.

And then there was the backyard beyond ours. When it came to Hampton, Michael was a font of information. In quintessential small town fashion, he knew everywhere and nearly everyone. A diplomatic public official and kindhearted neighbor, he would put circumstances into perspective with some piece of empathetic explanation which would initiate compassion, and compromise. He listened. Make no mistake – the most important facet of his guidance was when one was grappling with life’s challenges.  The spiritual side of Michael was perhaps his most private aspect of an otherwise very public life. The prayerfulness mentioned frequently at the ceremonies remembering him might have surprised some, yet many of us knew. I often turned to him when my own faith faltered; he never failed to enlighten. And in true Irish form, sometimes at his own expense and sometimes at ours, he always reminded us of the value of laughter. We could count on that, too.

Our family isn’t unique in any of this. It’s what I hear most frequently weeks and months after. Neighbors relaying the plans they formulated with him for installing a terrace, repairing a foundation, paving the driveway, building a pavilion. One of our friends said at Christmas dinner that there wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t think of something she should ask him; another relayed plans for a bluestone patio. And the First Selectman appropriately called the daily visit he’s missing, “the intel report”. Michael knew Hampton, and he knew its people. And he knew plants.

So many of my flowers, a few trees, and several shrubs, including all of our rhododendrons, roses and azaleas are from Michael. Last year alone he selected for us three Rose-of-Sharons, one magnolia, and another viburnum. For me, he’ll live on in them, which is the way with flowers. My garden actually started with the flowers that came from my mother’s garden, which came from my grandmother’s garden, which came from MichaeI’s grandmother’s garden, Viola Navin Fitzgerald, our family’s original gardener. All of the irises, the old-fashioned columbines and coral bells, the lupine, the phlox.  They form the roots of our family’s gardens.

And the roots of our family are very deep. Michael’s grandfather, Ambrose Fitzgerald and all three of his brothers, Edward, Richard, and Francis Fitzgerald, were charter members of the Fire Department, and his sister Anna’s husband, Robert McDermott, was the first chief. They can all be seen on the iconic 1930 photograph of the town’s first fire truck.  Michael’s grandmother, Viola Navin, was a local teacher whose family donated the land for our regional high school. The Fitzgeralds and the Navins were pillars of Our Lady of Lourdes Church. They were among the founders and the first parishioners, and the Church Hall is named the Ambrose Crane Center for Michael’s grandfather and Father Crane who were chiefly responsible for its construction. When our uncle, Bob McDermott, died while he was still serving as a Selectman, a position he held, on and off, from the time he was first eligible, Michael stepped up to the political plate the following year to serve as Selectman, a position he has held, on and off, ever since. They were really large shoes, but he filled them well, carrying on a legacy of diplomacy, industry, wisdom, generosity, vision, compassion, and, of course, humor.

Michael is the first citizen of the year we’ve honored posthumously, hopefully the last. Over the years, we’ve missed only a few, people who have served as public officials, volunteers, good neighbors. Michael was all of these. We missed the opportunity to praise him publicly while he was still alive, to properly thank him for everything, and, of course, to say good-bye.  But he never did. He always ended the conversation with – well, see you, or – all right, talk to you later. Never good-bye. And though we know in our souls we were fortunate to have known him, our hearts still tell us – it was too soon.

A Hampton native reminded me that I write this tribute, primarily, to our generation, and to our collective shock. “We will start to suffer losses of those we grew up with, so it is something we reject,” he said. Yet — we’re here, or at least near. And Michael leads us once again toward the threshold we approach, teaching us to simplify, to hold on a little more dearly to everyone and everything dear to us, reminding us of the cyclical we see in our grandchildren and the trees they plant with us, helping us to say with a little more acceptance – till we meet again, thank you.