Photo of Michelle Williams and Heath Ledger/Associated Press

In an interview in the October edition of Vogue magazine, Michelle Williams talks for the first time about her grief over the loss of Heath Ledger, her ex and the father of daughter Matilda.

Williams owns a house in Brooklyn and one in upstate New York, and she has spent most of her time there, hiding out, healing and trying to find a way to move forward.

She talks in the interview about holding herself together with "a string and a paperclip" and wondering, when her daughter was playing with friends, how she was going to get through the rest of the day.

Here is what she said about the role of gardening in her healing process.

"One [friend] got me gardening in the spring, and that's when it started to turn around. I think it's something about being in nature that made it more possible. I remember being on my hands and knees. The ground was cold and muddy. I pushed back the dead leaves and saw the bright green shoots of spring. Under all this decay something was growing. Caring for the garden reminded me to care for myself."

It is a lesson, sadly, many gardeners have learned.