The garden

Paige’s garden symbolizes her reclamation of life, her personal dedication to growth and healing. She narrates, “I wanted to think of the garden as an affirmation of life, as a new path towards fulfillment” (165). Indeed, it is through gardening that Paige does in a sense rejuvenate her life.

Uprooted Tomatoes

In Nyhan’s novel Digging In, Paige’s uprooted tomatoes symbolize premature death, thus they also represent Jesse. In Chapter 29, Paige found her tomato plants forcefully pulled from the ground: “They were ripped from the soil prematurely, but their life cycle was complete” (229). She immediately then likened this occurrence to the death of her husband.

Buried box

The box that Paige discovered buried in her yard symbolically acts as a Pandora’s box of sorts. When Paige opened this buried box, she removed the articles hidden inside (a dress and earrings), unleashing painful memories...