the humour, as you were dying and we were discussing the unthinkable--your final arrangements and ceremonies--became raw.
we'd grown up having our thoughts on death and life and everything in between handed to us. we dared not deviate or question. secretly we whispered our doubts and hopes only to each other, in that shared, private language we had. for years, we were the end of each other's sentence, the thought bubble above the other's head, the secret safety net we always knew was there. when you live in a pressure cooker, you cook fast, and you start to blend together whether you like it or not.
then life took meanders and turns as it does, and we grew away from the constraints but also from each other, from the interdependence and survival that defined us through childhood.
along the way, i was for a time, a regular guest and service provider in an indigenous community and their school. for 7 years, i offered my bare soul to these bare souls, and said, not on my watch. so much of the protective spirit i developed hovering over you, i used as a force field to hold space for these strangers--ironically as i now realize, traumatized by the same religion and forces within it. i trusted these people who were not my own, more than i had trusted anyone yet in my life.
and so it came to be, that our school principal, my friend Vicki, secretly bore diagnosis and treatment for lung cancer. one day, unexpectedly, she was gone. i was honoured to be invited to her ceremonies and to learn of the community's ancient traditions, which were of such comfort to me as a novice, and much more so to those who grew up with and around her. they talked about how when a person dies, they change form and become part of the natural world around us. we honour our grief, and their place in our lives, by holding a feast for them and setting their place at the table.
an empty chair.
you connected to the first nations traditions of your second husband jason. you shared with his community, a deep love and connection to nature and being outdoors. you felt that if an afterlife existed, you could be found where you were happiest when alive, amongst the trees, mountains and stars.
i did not share your love of nature. i was afraid, all my life, and allergic, too. i sneezed my way through mandatory chores and appreciated the beauty from a distance as you got your hands dirty and your skin browned. i never understood it. i never wanted to. it all just seemed itchy and dirty and crawly and uncomfortable.
but as you started dying, and so much so since that awful day, almost 2 years ago, i've had no where to go. you were already lost to me, unable to comfort me as you slipped through my longing fingers. in a way, i lost you the day you got your terminal diagnosis. i lost my safe harbour, my witness, my future.
i swirled. i swirl, yet.
i had all this rage and fear and a world rent in two for which there are no words agonizing and sharp enough. there was no where to put it. you were the only person who saw me and loved me as i am. who wasn't afraid of my storms and didn't take them personally. who knew they would pass. who knew that there was a terrified, cold, itchy little kid under the monster suit. only you knew.
at my home, there is a garden plot in the back yard. a vegetable garden was growing there when we toured with the realtor. i was impressed with the beans and the sunflowers and secretly dreading having to reproduce this image, knowing from childhood how painstaking and unforgiving growing food can be. i knew too, that no one else in my household, for various reasons, would join me. i just could not bring myself to take it on. for years, it has been the overgrown, untended eyesore. it became a curse of sorts, shaming me for not stepping up and growing the damn vegetables like a proper wife and mother and daughter in law and west coast hippie.
so many mantles. but still the scared itchy kid underneath, that no one even knew existed. she liked it that way.
the last time i saw you in person, things ended poorly with you callously exposing my family to covid and potentially risking our lives. i tackled that old garden and laid it flat. i pulled every weed and dug 4 feet down and around the giant overgrown rhubarb in the middle. i called it my rage garden, and i finished it as the quarantine period ended.
as predicted, over time, others grew nearby and filled some of the void. kristin, our cousin, your age. she remembers your laugh. bonnie, my sister in law, who drove me to your bedside as you passed, and has been my loyal companion and comfort so often since. my friends and my work community rallied at my side.
but life isn't fair, is it. there's more dying to be done. kristin's brother kevin, our sweet cousin, now out there somewhere laughing with you as she and i swirl separately and together and rage at the storm. sharon. the unthinkable loss of my hero and mentor and guiding light. sarah, a coworker from a nearby school whose laugh filled the air, passed on the day of kevin's funeral.
i just couldn't take any more.
and that damn garden had overgrown again. i raged at bonnie. i don't WANT to grow vegetables. what if you didn't? she asked. what would i do instead? you'll think of something. let's start by taking these out. with her bare hands, bonnie then ripped out the railway ties that formed the perimeter of this 200 square foot raised garden, and got on a plane, leaving me to come up with something to do.
i got my shovel and rake, and pulled at the chaos. just a little. just a corner. just that pile here. every day, encroaching deeper on the piles, and gathering bucket after bucket of weeds and debris, then hauling bucket after bucket of soil to other parts of the yard, to level this garden bed, transforming it in real time into something i could not picture.
a gift from bonnie to honour sharon--a special peony. it goes here, i decided. i plunked it down where it seemed like it should be, where i could see it from any angle. a place of honour.
a trip to the garden centre. i need a tree. a special tree. i got my tape measure as instructed by bonnie and dug a deep hole for the kevin tree, the sweetgum native to indiana.
the rhubarb that refuses to die. i joked to my friends on a weekend trip, that we should build it a shrine as it is clearly immortal. danean picked out a buddha statue to guard it.
these 3 items became the anchor points to the peace garden.
sissy. i learned to lay sidewalk stones. one day i decided i wasn't afraid of the bugs underneath that old pile, and i flipped them with my shovel, and i put them where i damn well thought they should go. then i moved and fixed and measured and straightened them, eventually satisfied.
a platform of salvaged bricks and pavers emerged near the peony. i decided i'd like to sit there to look at it. i bought trellises from a local crafter and stained them, and planted my roses beside them. i stained the old garage-sale-special chairs hidden in another part of the yard. i set sparkly stones between the bricks and river rocks behind them. i spray painted a copper table for the middle. solar twinkle lights came next. always digging, dirt, digging, and more dirt. day after day after day.
D and I moved large rocks to my sight line so i can think of the mountains. with my bare hands, i built a serpentine retaining wall with cinder block and brick salvaged from yet another bug filled horror space in some corner of the yard that never ends. i planted half dead perennials that i got on sale, with hopes of never having to mow or coax another damn thing to grow--that this garden would find its own way, as i have had to do.
'it's a listening space, not a visiting space,' i said to my friend lisa last week as she admired it. 'if you talk, you can't sit here.' i meant it.
every night, after the digging and weeding and watering is done, i go out and sit under the twinkle lights and get lost in the stars. i listen to the silence and the sounds of nature that emerge from it. i talk to you. i talk to the mute little girl in me that only you saw, that is so scared to live without you. i talk to kevin. i talk to sharon. i talk to sophia. i talk to Vicki. i talk to scott. i talk to merv. i talk to sarah and the first coworker sharon i lost in the chicago days. i talk to the babies i lost so long ago. i even talk to our grandparents. i beg for wisdom. i beg for this to all be a bad dream where i wake up and i'm not the one in charge of fixing everything. i howl at the moon's beauty, that you are not there to share it with me. i rage and weep and yearn--for those i love, who have left me and feel so far away. i grieve my empty future that once held you, that i now have to build for myself.
i give it all to the dirt, the stars, the rocks. they are not afraid of me. they can handle my storm, my tempest, my flood of tears. they know me and they see me. just like you, sissy. just like you.
when i sit out there, in the peace garden that i built, i sit beside you.
beside the empty chair.
i'll always love you. i'll always miss you. i'll always look for you in the trees.
love,
little.
