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Still Blooming:
Geranium from Ben, 2016. |
In various and unanticipated ways, Mother's Day will be different for all of us this year. For some, it will be honored at unprecedented distance from loved ones; for some, it will be passed in extraordinarily close proximity to those loved ones. For some, it will celebrate the promise of new life; and for some, it will be marked with memory, by holding those we've loved and lost close in our hearts. Around here, Mother's Day has always involved spending time in the garden, and that will not change this year. There will be wandering and wondering, remembering and reflecting... and there will be taking a moment to gather a metaphorical Mother's Day bouquet.
Every spring, Vinca, sometimes known as Periwinkle, sometimes
known as Joy-of-the-Ground, awakens in the wooded border of our garden. This hard-working, always-green ground cover is alternatively called Myrtle-- Grandma Lebo's given name. The Victorian language of flowers tells us that Myrtle signifies the pleasure of memory, and as I look across an expanse of
glossy foliage filling the landscape without a fuss, star-shaped lavender-blue
flowers nodding in dappled sunlight, I remember childhood Sunday visits to Grandpa and
Grandma Lebo's farm:
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| Periwinkle Myrtle, Grandma Lebo. |
We would pile into the big country kitchen and, before the screen door slammed shut behind us, we were ushered to the long planked dining table and offered a slice of pie: blueberry,
apple, rhubarb, mincemeat (!) or my favorite, peach… buttery crust soaked in
sweet fruit juice. Aunts and uncles and cousins were perched on chairs and
stools lining the kitchen, talking and listening and laughing, as Grandma—farm wife, mother of ten,
grandmother to dozens—moved from stove to sink to
refrigerator—moving, moving, never sitting, wiping her fine-boned, blue veined
hands on her apron, blue eyes smiling, wispy silver hair wrapped in a low bun. Grandma Lebo, moving amidst the generations without a fuss....
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| Bleeding Heart, Grandma Wolfe. |
The Bleeding Heart that appears each springtime
by our backyard gate recalls a long-ago Bleeding Heart that flourished
in a tranquil corner of Grandma Wolfe's yard. That ephemerally-blooming perennial
caught the eyes and captured the imaginations of sisters and cousins; bony-kneed and breathless, we would
stop to gaze upon it before continuing on wild ramblings
across a rolling expanse of Pennsylvania lawn. Today, as I pause to contemplate graceful arching chains of
fuchsia-and-white pendant hearts, I remember quiet times with Grandma Wolfe: she
sitting in her favorite upholstered chair, me sitting at a nearby desk, doodling
and drawing childish masterpieces while we talked and talked and talked some
more about many things, some trivial, some profound, some words of gentle encouragement that I hold and cherish in my heart of hearts.
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| African Violet, Grandma Melhorn. |
Memories of Grandma Melhorn are scattered about the house: the hand-written
pie crust recipe in a kitchen drawer, hand-crocheted slippers in a closet shoe box,
hand-crafted stuffed bears tucked away in quiet corners… and African violets cultivated from her beautiful violet collection,
thriving, guileless and undemanding, in our sunny bay window. Velvet green
leaves, cheerful sprays of pink-or-purple flowers: the language of flowers tells us that
violets signify watchfulness and faithfulness, and Grandma’s violets confer a
legacy uncomplicated, unwavering love to our windowsill.
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| Clematis, Mom Massam. |
Each spring Mom Massam's heirloom Clematis begins its determined climb up our lamp post, a coiling, curling time-lapse ascent culminating in
a profusion of brilliant pink-blooms twining her memory to our garden. I remember Mom
Massam's common sense and uncommon care, her devotion and dedication to house and
home and happy holidays, her patience and practical advice as I became a wife
to her son and then a mother to a son. And let’s not forget her Jiffy Cake
recipe....
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| Yellow Primrose, Mom Lebo. |
The swath of Yellow Primrose is not yet blooming. In a week or two, though, we'll welcome to the garden cups-and-saucers of abiding sunshine that get bees a-buzzing and butterflies all a-flutter. In autumn, the foliage turns a bronzed orange-red that is seasonally appropriate and pleasing to the eye. All of this from a shovel-clump of transplanted perennial mish-mash, transported across state lines from Mom and Dad's house on Knepper Drive in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
I think of Mom: her simultaneously conventional and unconventional style of mothering—a confidante,
a militant conversationalist, a creative spirit with a compassionate heart. The rough, raw edges of saying goodbye to her have smoothed and grown more subtle through time, but I miss her still.
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Beginnings and Endings and Beginning Again:
Waiting for Ben's Asiatic Lilies to Bloom. |
Across the years and through the seasons, I've come to understand that Motherhood and Gardening are not unalike. They are noble, magnificent, disorderly, imperfect endeavors: both involve working and watching and waiting and worrying and wondering and working some more. There are times of trial-and-error, episodes of triumph-and-terror. Both provide moments of pure joy and sheer wonder at miracles, large and small, some predicted and many utterly unforeseen. Mothers and Gardeners learn, across the years and through the seasons, the artful science of nurturing: when to nudge, when to practice benign neglect, when to dig and delve, and when to throw hands in the air and let nature take its proverbial course. There are beginnings and endings, and there is beginning again. And there are memories... bright, blooming memories to sustain us-- memories of mothering, and of the mothers who've touched our lives.
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| Ben's Asiatic Lilies in Bloom, Mother's Day Past. |
