I spent an hour and a half in my garden last week. The first slice of evening where there was just enough light and just enough of a break in the steady rainfall to be outside for awhile.
I'd recently been given a rosebush-pruning lesson and witnessed in just days how life and health seemed to pulse back through the branches, and my hope was to apply my lesson and my snips to a few other scraggly bushes in my garden.
"Garden" may be the tiniest overstatement. When I bought this little place a few years ago, it came with a pristine new-sod lawn and a truckload of barkdust that stretched from the edge of the lawn to the edge of the fence with not a bit of life or color in between. I've been trying to fill in all that empty space a patch at a time ever since. We're no french country garden, but we're coming along.
I don't know what I'm doing in the garden. I guess I'm a bit of a city girl. My family lived in the "country" back when I was learning to tie my shoes, but that was a lot of shoelaces ago. Very little of the country experience made the trip from the "toolies" to the "burbs". For example ~ I like to think that eggs come from the dairy case at Trader Joe's. It's tough for me to admit to myself that they "come shootin' out a chicken's ass", (line lifted from the film, "Fried Green Tomatoes", apologies and credits to Fannie Flagg). In fact, a friend handed me a couple dozen brown eggs from her own chickens last summer and I gave them all away because I was just not ready to eat them after meeting the aforementioned asses from which they shot that very afternoon.
Back to the garden ~ so I don't know what I'm doing. I planted a blueberry bush a few years ago. After a few seasons, while I was delighted with the tiny white blossoms, I was disappointed that there'd been no berries to enjoy. I mentioned my barren blueberry bush problem to a woman I work with, she's a bit of a master gardener in her after-office hours, she frequently brings me little shoots and starts, and, while I can't be sure, I believe she turned her back to me for just a second to restrain a snort. She gathered herself, turned back to me and said, with grace, "um, kid", (she calls me kid)... "you know you need two blueberry plants if you want berries, right?" Um, yea, no. No. Did not know that. City girl. Apparently, mommy blueberry bush has to love daddy blueberry bush and somehow the bees get invited into this arrangement, and, well, there you go, blueberries.
I don't know what I'm doing in the garden. But in the not-knowing, I'm discovering what I do know. I know that I love the feel of my hands in the dirt. When someone asks me what kind of flowers I like, I know I tend to say "purple". The thick gardening manuals that provide all kinds of instruction on zoning and fertilizer, while I'm sure they're worthwhile, they leave me overwhelmed and confused. But invite me to walk through a nursery and drink in all the grand colors and varieties and hopeful, life-giving possibilities, and I'm your girl. I like to buy bags of bulbs at farmer's markets, even big box stores. I left the Dollar Store a week ago with 4 bucks worth of gladiolas. Why not. I know I love taking my wicker basket out to gather cherry tomatoes and eat handfuls of them right off the vine. I know I love watering in the cool of the evening once the neighborhood is tucked in and only the moon is keeping an eye on me. I know I love stepping off my porch in the morning to discover that a tiny little companion has poked her head up through the soil, against all odds, to be part of my life. I've been known to say "hello baby" to these little blooms who make their home with me.
I know I'm not alone in my garden. I know my spirit is quieted by the companionship I experience. As I tend, I am reminded that I am tended to as well. As I water, my thirsty soul is refreshed by the Spirit that is food and drink to me. Even as I cut away what is dead so that life can bust through again, I am comforted with a gentle understanding. Oh, I see. You want me to live. You want me to grow. You want me to thrive. I know... I know.
I am going to my favorite local nursery spot tomorrow. I have a list. Some new companions to share my home with me. Some purples. And maybe some yellows, some pinks, some greens. And some blueberry bushes. Two of them.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Nana ~
My nana died last Friday evening. She was 94 years old. Her name was Helen May.
I was given her middle name ("Kathryn May" means I'm in trouble), I wear a sterling silver bracelet that is engraved with her monogram as a single woman in the 1930s, and I possess the memories of a sweet connection with her the past few years of her life.
Many of the grandparents and great-grands in my family tree have lived well into their 90s. There's a running gag among us now ~ we're not photogenic, we have lousy metabolism, but, geez, we live forever. Well, not forever, I guess.
As grandparents go, at least the ones I was most accustomed to in my childhood, nana was, well, a tiny bit scandalous. She had a liquor cabinet in her house that I was fascinated by as a child. We'd visit her on Saturday afternoons and she would offer us "hi-balls". She'd pour cold Pepsi into gin glasses and I'd sip my drink as she sipped hers, and I'd feel fancy and naughty at the same time. She had a limited supply of tolerance, oh, on just about any topic. A roll of her eyes, a "sheesh", a smirk, that was her expressed opinion on countless matters. Any funky smell was "bad enough to knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon", and any child age 12 or below who was in her eyesight was "a farmer". She was, how can I put this, bossy. Its quite possible that the first "dammit" I ever heard came out of her mouth.
For most of my childhood, she lived a thousand miles away for most of the year. When the Southern California sun could not be tamed by the pool or the shade of the orange grove, she'd pack up her Cadillac and head north. This went on for years. I'd not see her for months, and then, when she'd lay eyes on me on that first visit of the summer, her first words to me would invariably be, "you need to lose weight", followed immediately by "can I make you a sandwich?"
She was tan and fit, she golfed and traveled. She met "the girls" for bridge at the club. She square danced. She bought handbags bejeweled with designs of peacocks, of flowers. She was a classically trained pianist. She buried two husbands and suffered the betrayal of a son. She kept coffee cans full of the nickels she won playing bingo, she got reprimanded once for pushing and shoving to get on the senior-center activity bus, and she kept a tissue in the pocket of every sweater she owned.
She began to fail several months ago. There was a fall, there was the confusion, and then there was the diagnosis that gave us a hint as to how her life might end.
The past few years, the past few months, have been especially poignant. Watching my mom care for this woman has been a revelation to me, truly, she has revealed to me how it is that one cares for an aging, dying parent. My nana has not been easy to love, as nanas go. She's held firmly to a reluctance toward sentiment, toward expressions of tenderness, a reservation, perhaps an inability to demonstrate, to speak what simply needs to be spoken. And yet, my mom has loved her, has tended to her with compassion and faithfulness and grace.
A few months ago, with nana deep into dementia, mom sat beside her bed, held her hand, and spoke gently to her. "Mom, do you know who I am?", she asked. Nana, who for months had confused my mom with a half-dozen dead relatives, looked her right in the eye, and said "yes, you're my little baby girl." I got to witness that moment, and I will never forget it. I believe it was a cup of cold water offered to my mom's thirsty heart. Offered, not really by nana, but by God, who has watched my mom's faithfulness all her life and knew that refreshment was needed.
There were late-night calls the last week of her life, calls to tell us that it was time to say goodbye. We kissed her, we stroked her hair, we pressed our lips to her ear and told her that she was loved, by us, by God, that she was safe, that she didn't have to worry, that we'd be alright, that she could go. She spoke gibberish for most of the visit, and we cried as we listened to her painful efforts to breathe. My mom held her hand and told her stories from her own childhood, reminded her of scenes that are as vivid to her today as they were sixty-plus years ago. Nana opened her eyes at one point and said clearly, "please hold me, please hold me."
A few moments later, she was fighting with the nurses who were taking care of her in the bathroom, insisting that no one needs more than 3 squares of toilet paper. I heard that "dammit" again. Vintage nana.
Geez, my family, we live forever. Well, not forever, not now, not here. Someday, somewhere else.
Prayers were answered Friday night. Mom's prayer for nana to finally, peacefully, let go. Nana's prayer to be held. After 94 years of reluctance and reservation, I can only believe that, at last, she is letting herself love.
But don't get me wrong, nana's nana. She's bossing somebody around.
I was given her middle name ("Kathryn May" means I'm in trouble), I wear a sterling silver bracelet that is engraved with her monogram as a single woman in the 1930s, and I possess the memories of a sweet connection with her the past few years of her life.
Many of the grandparents and great-grands in my family tree have lived well into their 90s. There's a running gag among us now ~ we're not photogenic, we have lousy metabolism, but, geez, we live forever. Well, not forever, I guess.
As grandparents go, at least the ones I was most accustomed to in my childhood, nana was, well, a tiny bit scandalous. She had a liquor cabinet in her house that I was fascinated by as a child. We'd visit her on Saturday afternoons and she would offer us "hi-balls". She'd pour cold Pepsi into gin glasses and I'd sip my drink as she sipped hers, and I'd feel fancy and naughty at the same time. She had a limited supply of tolerance, oh, on just about any topic. A roll of her eyes, a "sheesh", a smirk, that was her expressed opinion on countless matters. Any funky smell was "bad enough to knock a buzzard off a gut-wagon", and any child age 12 or below who was in her eyesight was "a farmer". She was, how can I put this, bossy. Its quite possible that the first "dammit" I ever heard came out of her mouth.
For most of my childhood, she lived a thousand miles away for most of the year. When the Southern California sun could not be tamed by the pool or the shade of the orange grove, she'd pack up her Cadillac and head north. This went on for years. I'd not see her for months, and then, when she'd lay eyes on me on that first visit of the summer, her first words to me would invariably be, "you need to lose weight", followed immediately by "can I make you a sandwich?"
She was tan and fit, she golfed and traveled. She met "the girls" for bridge at the club. She square danced. She bought handbags bejeweled with designs of peacocks, of flowers. She was a classically trained pianist. She buried two husbands and suffered the betrayal of a son. She kept coffee cans full of the nickels she won playing bingo, she got reprimanded once for pushing and shoving to get on the senior-center activity bus, and she kept a tissue in the pocket of every sweater she owned.
She began to fail several months ago. There was a fall, there was the confusion, and then there was the diagnosis that gave us a hint as to how her life might end.
The past few years, the past few months, have been especially poignant. Watching my mom care for this woman has been a revelation to me, truly, she has revealed to me how it is that one cares for an aging, dying parent. My nana has not been easy to love, as nanas go. She's held firmly to a reluctance toward sentiment, toward expressions of tenderness, a reservation, perhaps an inability to demonstrate, to speak what simply needs to be spoken. And yet, my mom has loved her, has tended to her with compassion and faithfulness and grace.
A few months ago, with nana deep into dementia, mom sat beside her bed, held her hand, and spoke gently to her. "Mom, do you know who I am?", she asked. Nana, who for months had confused my mom with a half-dozen dead relatives, looked her right in the eye, and said "yes, you're my little baby girl." I got to witness that moment, and I will never forget it. I believe it was a cup of cold water offered to my mom's thirsty heart. Offered, not really by nana, but by God, who has watched my mom's faithfulness all her life and knew that refreshment was needed.
There were late-night calls the last week of her life, calls to tell us that it was time to say goodbye. We kissed her, we stroked her hair, we pressed our lips to her ear and told her that she was loved, by us, by God, that she was safe, that she didn't have to worry, that we'd be alright, that she could go. She spoke gibberish for most of the visit, and we cried as we listened to her painful efforts to breathe. My mom held her hand and told her stories from her own childhood, reminded her of scenes that are as vivid to her today as they were sixty-plus years ago. Nana opened her eyes at one point and said clearly, "please hold me, please hold me."
A few moments later, she was fighting with the nurses who were taking care of her in the bathroom, insisting that no one needs more than 3 squares of toilet paper. I heard that "dammit" again. Vintage nana.
Geez, my family, we live forever. Well, not forever, not now, not here. Someday, somewhere else.
Prayers were answered Friday night. Mom's prayer for nana to finally, peacefully, let go. Nana's prayer to be held. After 94 years of reluctance and reservation, I can only believe that, at last, she is letting herself love.
But don't get me wrong, nana's nana. She's bossing somebody around.
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