Gosh, the similiarities between your story, @deeanndmathews and my own - all grandparent stories - made me tear up a little. How we live on through our grandchildren! It strikes me that they had time to garden with us in our formative years, unlike our parents who were busy working and raising the family, and it was that that enabled them to pass those good memories attached to gardening that meant they - intentionally or not - handed it down to the younger generation before they died.
To be hoonest, I forced Jarrah (my son) to garden, and he vowed if he had a backyard he'd fill it with concrete. Lol. But as he gets older he sees the value - if not for the love of labouring in nature, for the trees that bear fruit for his belly! His fiance loves it so he'll be drawn in eventually!
I miss my Nana too, and am grateful to her. I feel she lives on each year I garden - I feel her presence with me all the time, particularly with the calendulas.
Sometimes I fear that I'm forgetting my grandma. But you're right, they live on each year in our gardens.
It's up to us to pass down the knowledge now. I hope I do it right when the time comes!
Yes I think that's really the true meaning of immortality!