Mother's Day Tradition

 

When I lived in Illinois, I never planted any flowers until May, because of the possibility of a late freeze killing them. Gradually, our Mother’s Day family tradition evolved into going to a greenhouse to Buy Whatever Mom Wants. I never really had a plan on these excursions, that is, I didn’t shop with the intention of “filling that hole in the flower bed on the north side of the house.” Instead, I happily wandered up and down the aisles, stepping over hoses, traipsing through puddles on the pavement, randomly choosing plants and flowers that caught my eye with the mindset of “I’ll find somewhere to put them.” My cart became full of a hodge podge of perennials, annuals, herbs, and vegetables and I was often surprised at the final tally, but Scott never told me to put any back. He knew the garden was my happy place. At home, I would line everything up on the deck and ponder. I would pick up a container and carry it around the yard, mentally placing it either in this flower bed or that, perhaps in the garden or perhaps along the fence. Eventually, a decision would be made, and I would kneel on my foam pad, trowel in hand, and give that particular plant a quasi-permanent home. Sometimes the process took a week or more, and sometimes I would grow tired of my indecision and just dig a hole.

 

This is what happened the year we bought a wisteria vine (“vine” being the operative word here). Growing up, we had a beautiful wisteria bush in the front yard, just off the porch, that would gracefully bow over in a cave of sweet-smelling purple clusters each spring. After many years, it grew old (or Dad simply got tired of it), and it was cut down. But I’d always wanted one and imagined having an arbor where we could sit and read, or talk with friends, or have a glass of wine, sheltered by the twining wisteria that grew up and over the arbor. The year we decided to buy wisteria for Mother’s Day I was elated and couldn’t wait to see the arbor of my imagination finally come to fruition. Until then, we “put the wisteria in the ground for now,” until the arbor was built. Then we’d transplant it. That was the plan. But farm work and town work and life in general kept Scott busy and the arbor never got built. The wisteria didn’t mind. While it was happily thriving and spreading in its “temporary” home by the side of the porch, I would prune it back from time to time, trying to keep it from grabbing the wooden porch railing and pulling it down. One year, while mowing, I stopped to pull a vine out from where it had travelled under the porch, only to find that it had travelled completely under and out on the other side of the house. I stared at the yards and yards of pale, yellow vine that I pulled out, and that evening we agreed that planting the wisteria next to the porch had not been the wisest choice.

 

It was October when I moved away, and there were no blooming flowers or plants anywhere to be seen in the yard. I had intended to dig some iris bulbs and take them with me, but the decision to move, although long coming, was also somehow made quickly and there didn’t seem to be time. I think about my garden and flower beds often - mostly in the spring - and wonder how many of my plants are still thriving and offering their beauty to the people who now live there. I’ve driven by the old house many times when I visit, but I’ve never stopped. To walk along the fence and look at what is no longer mine is something I’m unable to do, even after all these years.

 

Today I’ll kneel next to my little flower bed and clear out the weeds and decide what might look nice in the bare spot I intentionally leave each year for annuals. Although most of it is currently a beautiful riot of iris, lilies, honeysuckle, lavender, and dianthus, which come back every year with no effort on my part, the corner triangle is what I reserve for something I must plant and tend to, to trick myself, I suppose, into believing I’m still a gardener. I consider that last sentence and mentally correct myself. There’s no trick involved: I AM a gardener, regardless of the size of my garden or what I may or may not plant. It’s in my heart, this desire to tend to living things, and that’s something akin to being a mother, isn’t it? So, I will go to the greenhouse, grab a cart, and wander slowly through the tight aisles of the parking lot, carefully considering the choices for my limited space. The sun is warm, the soil is damp and rich smelling from being watered, and there are bees that are busily working the rows of blossoms for sale. My Mother’s Day tradition continues.

The Promise

 

This morning, I fulfilled a promise that I made nearly two years ago to my great-grandmother, Rose. The setting: a neglected grave, overgrown with evergreen shrubs; a headstone with an incorrect birth year and a missing death year; and the mysterious disappearance of a ceramic photo tile, once attached to the headstone, but since lost. Seventy years ago, in 1955, Rose was buried in Las Cruces, New Mexico, next to her second husband, Charles, who had died in 1938. Her family being primarily in Colorado, and his family in Texas, time and elements, along with fading memories, took their toll and their final resting place was forgotten. Until I discovered it again through my genealogy research. The decision to find someone who could engrave dates on the headstone was easy, as was asking for some pruning and maintenance of the site around the grave. As someone who had spent many, many hours uncovering the story of Rose’s life, and who had become emotionally invested in telling it, there seemed to me to be no other choice. And now, finally, the last step had been accomplished.

 

I had seen an earlier photo of Rose and Charles’s headstone where, in the center, between their names, a photograph of the two of them had been affixed. It was eerily beautiful, I thought, to have this image of them in life at their final resting place, but when I commissioned the repairs and corrections to be made to the headstone, I was told the photo was nowhere to be found. Decades of New Mexico weather, I supposed. Or vandals. But when the workers I’d hired removed the stone from its base to take back to the shop, they found the lost photo tile buried in the dirt. A few months later, I decided to go back to Las Cruces to see the restored headstone for myself. I was surprised to find the tile sitting unsecured in the recessed square where it had originally been affixed. Obviously, I couldn’t just leave it like that, or it would fall out again, perhaps this time breaking. Sitting on the ground, holding the cool ceramic tile in my hands, I pondered what to do next. I decided I had two choices: Take it home and keep it or figure out a way to permanently reattach it to the headstone. I wasn’t a mason. I also wasn’t very handy with any kind of repair work. Besides, it was November, and cool. I decided to take the tile home, keep it safe, decide how to accomplish the task, and come back when it was dry and warm, and finish the job. "I'll come back in the spring," I said out loud. "I promise."

 

Six months of having the photo tile sitting on a little easel on my bookcase and I realized I didn’t want to let it go. I loved holding it in my hands, feeling its smooth, slightly curved shape, and running my finger over the faces of Rose and Charles. The photo had turned slightly yellow, and was chipped along the edges, revealing a copper backing, but I felt a myriad of emotions when I looked at it. Rose had chosen this photo- it was from when they’d gone to Colorado to secretly elope in 1920. Although they were no longer young, their faces were smooth and relaxed, and both wore slight, gentle smiles of happiness that belied the scandal they had caused back in Kansas. They kept their marriage a secret for four months- Charles returning to Las Cruces, where he’d started a business and was living, and Rose returning to her parents’ farm in Western Kansas, where she’d been living after being turned out by my great-grandfather after the discovery of her and Charles’s affair. Eventually, her divorce from my great-grandfather became final, and she took a train south to join Charles in their new life.

On Saturday, I parked my car at the cemetery and took a bucket of tools out of the back. "Hi, I'm back," I said. "I'm going to finish the job." I spread a beach towel on the ground, got out a wire brush, water, and rags, and went to work on the dirt and bird droppings that had accumulated. I used a paint brush to clear the dirt and then, carefully unwrapping the tile from where it was carefully packed, I held it for a long time. I really didn’t want to let it go; I wanted it to always be with me on my bookshelf. But I also knew that it wasn’t mine to keep. It belonged to Rose, and she had chosen it specifically to be placed on the headstone.  I spread the caulk into the recessed square, and oh so carefully positioned the tile as straight as I could. Taking a deep breath, I pressed it into the caulk, wiping away the stray bits around the edges, and held it firm. Placing blue painters’ tape over the top, I sat back and nodded with satisfaction. “I’ll be back on Monday to check how it looks”, I said. I packed the tools, shook out the towel, and drove away. 

That night, an unexpected thunderstorm rolled in, and I lay in bed worrying about whether the caulk had had time to set and if the rain would pull the tape loose. But the next day was warm and sunny, and this morning when I carefully pulled the tape from the tile, I saw the serene faces of Rose and Charles, firmly restored to their rightful place. I pressed around the edges- no movement.  I sat, satisfied and peaceful, listening to the wind and the doves, and I hoped that, somehow, my great-grandmother knew what I had done, and that she was pleased.