New Flowers
Every spring is a watching game. The weather warms, the cool winds blow, the rains fall. As they do, I start watching the plants for signs of resurrection. Tiny green shoots, buds of flowers, leaves, and branches. The watching is more intense this spring because February delivered three snows, heavy ice, and a long hard freeze. Some of my plants look much the worse for the wear, and some may never recover.
In the watching, there is also touching, an attempt to divine intent. Is a bud soft with life or hard and dead? Does the bare branch spring with moisture? What’s the story? The sumacs, for instance, are interesting. At the long end of the branch, away from the trunks, you can tell growth is taking place, because the wood has the feel of velvet, fragile and soft to the touch, newborn, full of potential. It was an unexpected discovery born of the anxiety for their survival. I have made note and taken hope.
The anxiety following the hard winter, is made slightly worse, because this spring is also the first spring since the departure of my wife, one of the many euphemisms we use for death. So, the joy of the reborn garden is bittersweet and tempered by that loss. Although perhaps one should say the loss is tempered by the reborn garden. Afterall, many of the now revived plants were put in the ground by her hand. Surely, the spirit of the planter is still there, especially if I choose to say, it’s so. And I do. Because it’s spring and everything is born again, and my memories of her are still as fresh as new flowers.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale.