Yuri and Naomi Socorro are a couple with a strong faith that are deeply in love.  He is a reporter who has been around the world.  She is a novelist and patient wife who waits for him to return home from his trips.  Yuri’s next assignment is one that scares him; he is going to Iraq to report on the ongoing war tearing the country apart.  Naomi tries to convince him not to go, but she knows better.  Fear is what motivates her husband.

Before he leaves, he plants a “Bleeding Heart” in the front of their house, in a garden that is only half complete.  Yuri is an avid gardener and promises to finish what he began when he returns.

When Yuri’s cameraman, Paul, returns from Iraq without him, something has gone wrong.  As the weeks pass, Naomi refuses to acknowledge that her husband will not be returning home and quietly pretends nothing has changed.  She goes about writing a new novel, but her agent Jim tells her that her latest work is below her and orders her to stop writing. 

Her faith in God wanes as she stops going to church, much to the chagrin of her 11 year old daughter Marcella.   Naomi ignores friends who try to reach out to her, including Paul who yearns to tell her what happened in Iraq.  She is at constant odds with her busybody next door neighbor, Miss Rosemary who appears to be the only one watering the Bleeding Heart Yuri planted before he left.

One day, the Bleeding Heart goes missing from her garden, leaving Naomi shell shocked.  The pile of dirt and growing weeds begin to take their toll on her.  She attempts to fill in the land with plants Yuri had pre-ordered, but she is no green thumb.  The garden becomes a disaster in the making.

Meanwhile, Marcella grows more annoyed that her mother refuses to come to terms with the harsh reality that Yuri is gone.  She begins to rebel, ripping flowers out of Miss Rosemary’s garden, getting in fights at school and in a fit of rage, she destroys Yuri’s coffee mugs.   A freak accident involving the mugs puts Marcella in the hospital.

It is this event, along with the destruction of Yuri’s beloved 1986 Chevy that sends Naomi to Paul who is receiving treatment at a rehabilitation center for injuries that have left him in a wheelchair. Paul tells Naomi, how Yuri saved his life in Iraq by sacrificing his own.  She knows she must walk back into the church without Yuri by her side.  It is there she finds the strength to stop pretending and face her fears.

But what about the garden Yuri left behind?  One morning, Naomi gets out of bed and sees Marcella outside, restoring the plants and re-building the garden.  All is not dead.  There is still life in the land.