Ten days ago I took a different walk home from work. Somehow the idea came along of going to the former site of the Orthodox church from 2012, to visit Mother N.'s old garden. Back then, Mother had it planned out so that the plants stood in height order like children in a class picture. The tallest (giant sunflowers) were against the south wall. Next were tall hollyhocks. Then, the flowers bloomed in layers and stages, drawing the eye in and upwards, with blooms for every season to give us something beautiful to see all year.
Well, I should have known better than to take that scenic detour. At the old site, nothing was in bloom. There was shrubbery and undergrowth crowding around, but even in mid May there were no flowers. After a little hunting around I found this brave little volunteer:
What can it be? My search terms didn't turn up anything similar. It looks like a yellow version of Platycodon, or blue balloon flower.
Well, the visit to the old garden was a wee bit of letdown. But that walk was just one of the rituals we make up, to fill in space and make meaning out of losing someone dear.
The overcast drizzly day got a warm ray of setting sun as I turned around for the walk home. And wow, what a discovery. There waiting to be noticed was a great field of dandelions, the biggest and healthiest that I've ever seen. This was no wan fading garden. The dandelions were knee high and thriving.
If Mother were around, and just maybe she was, she would teased me about looking for signs of life in an old garden left behind, and she would have been delighted by Life being Life at its medicinal best right nearby -- a whole field of greens! There were acres' worth growing in marshy ground between the bus station, the bridge underpass, and the interstate highway -- enough nourishing food for the whole summer!
I sure was tempted to pick them. But I didn't pick any, because this whole field is home base for men living in tents and RVs parked all around. That is why this photo is so narrow and cropped; it wouldn't do, to bother the men by taking pictures of them or their setup. I took only a discreet little snippet aiming away from them, and then hit the road.
At home I searched for and looked through a couple of views of the old church. Mother made every possible effort to deck the church with flowers, often from the garden outside. One view is from a warm day, when her lilies were a perfect match for the interior of the church.
The other view is a cold day, when the very last ray of sun shot up against a white chrysanthemum.
Mother's church has moved away, and her garden is gone. The next step is for me to carry on in some way, appreciating the memories of her good work and the flowers all around us.
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