My grandmother was a master gardener. She could make anything bloom  . Even me.  For most of her life, she lived on a farm in the mountains of North Carolina, where she raised four children, buried a husband, and watched the changing of the seasons. After my parents divorced , my dad moved back to the farm. I visited on weekends or holidays. While my dad ate my grandmother's vegetables, I breathed in her flowers. I was a skinny kid, but her flowers filled a thousand hungry places in my soul. When my regular farm tasks were done, I was free to climb the mountain, singing songs and gathering flowers. Sometimes the plants scratched   me. My grandmother would say: "Beauty has a price. I hope it was worth it." "Yes, ma'am," I'd say. "It was." Then I'd scratch some more. I loved gathering flowers on my own. But what I loved best was gathering them with her. I walked behind her like a sponge   with legs, trying to soak   it all up. At the end of the day, we'd sort the flowers and make bouquets  : One for the living room, one for the kitchen, and three for the bedrooms. Even then, as a child, I knew what I needed most from my grandmother was not her flowers, but her time. She's been gone for years, but sometimes, when I reach down to pick a flower or pull a weed, I see her hand, not mine. I thought I'd grow up to be a gardener too. I told myself, someday, when my children had children, I'd be a gardening grandma. Then the grandbabies started showing up, and I discovered I'd much rather chase after them than go digging. The truth is, I'm no gardener. I'm a picker, not a planter. I differ from my grandmother in lots of ways, but this: I will always carry within me a heart she made from her own. They don't need to plant a garden. My children are my flowers. Delight and complete me with a beauty that is worth any price. All I need to do is care for them with time, water them with love, and hope that someday, when they hold their first grandchild, they might see my hand. In the author's eyes, her grandmother was mostly   _  .
wise and humorous inspiring and caring hardworking and brave tough and stubborn