Solstice: Zinnias, Bad News, Home for the Holidays

Change everywhere. Always

Yesterday, I finally pulled out the dried-out stalks of the zinnias, some 6 feet tall, that delighted me this summer and into the fall. I waited for a long time to do this, because I’m hoping that their seeds have fallen out of the dried flowers and will come up again in the spring, which, right now, seems like forever from now. I filled the space left by the zinnias with winter greens: collards, mustards, Asian greens, beets, and chard. Yesterday, my beds looked spent, crowded, tired. Today, they look hopeful, optimistic, full of potential, spacious. And all it took was a slight change of perspective and a willingness to pull out some stalks that had done their part to make room for something new. It’s easier in a garden, isn’t it?

Eleven years ago, tomorrow, I was standing by the sink in our kitchen, getting my kids ready for our annual 2-hour drive north on Christmas Eve to my husband’s parents’ house. And my mother called with some really bad news. The worst possible news—she was going to the hospital that morning. She had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer that had already spread to her liver. That, to anyone who doesn’t already know, is a terminal diagnosis for anyone, especially someone in their 80’s. I cannot think of another phone call with my mother, ever, in which she sobbed openly. Me too. Right there, right then, my world without her began to make itself known, lurking, a large, dark shape passing underneath the waves, a whisper barely heard, a shape in a darkened room, visible yet so hard to see.

The rest of that Christmas is a bit of a blur. I tried not to let my sadness ruin the moment for my kids, then 10 and 17, but, of course, the minute that I put the phone down, they knew. I’ve never had much of a poker face. Mostly I tried to spend time outside, alone, trying to breathe. Everything tasted like sand.

My mother made it to the New Year’s Eve party that she and her husband loved to attend, carried up the stairs no less. By the end of the month, she was dead. It happened so fast that it has taken me years to catch up.

What I couldn’t have known then is how often I still hear her voice in my mind and how much comfort I get from wearing her ring and watch every day. When faced with a major decision or challenge, I consult her still. We go for walks together in my mind.  I treasure the times that she appears in my dreams, which has happened only a handful of times since her death. My sister and I laugh about some of her most identifiable quirks—especially her, “I’ve been thinking” letters, which invariably led to a stern, and usually completely justified, rebuke. Just this week, my sister suggested that I send my 21-year old son one of them. My mom would have. He deserved it.

Despite the constant evidence of endless change (in my garden, in my family, in my body, in my marriage, in our world) it always takes me by surprise.  When those zinnias were at their peak, I gloried in the reds, oranges, yellows and forgot, conveniently, that by December they’d be brown. When my mother called with her terrible news, it was shocking, despite the fact that she’d been losing weight and energy for close to a year. As I write this, my adult kids are home for a few days and I’m sad that they’ll both be gone by the middle of next week and our house will be back to the two of us, the dog, and the cat who stops by for meals a few times a day.

I hate the shortness of the winter days and yearn for summer. As if, somehow, my feelings about any of it can hasten or delay the inevitable. Every day, now, is a fraction of a minute longer already. When I stop and think about it, this is excellent news. It is rather thrilling, isn’t it, to be on such a wild ride? And yet, most days, there I am, on the roller coaster, gripping that safety bar as tight as I possibly can, eyes closed, breath held, bracing myself against each turn.