She is dead.
She is gone. No amount of wishing, dreaming, hoping,
pretending will bring her back.
For 13 years I was
secretly keeping bits of her alive. If I
could just take care of those, nurture them enough, be responsible enough, I would
keep her here with me.
But she slowly slipped
away, seeped through my fingers, until I finally understood that my imagined
task to keep her with me was impossible.
She is dead. She is gone.
And she isn’t coming back. It’s
not my fault. It’s not my choice. But it is true.
I kept her alive. Her body, the part everyone could see, died
long ago. When it was time for that to
happen I was brave. I was
accepting. I sat with her, with my
family, as we watched her go. We grieved
her death and our lives moved on.
But secretly, I kept her
alive. I wore her sweaters. I walked in her shoes. I displayed her frog. I kept her jewelry. And most importantly, I watered her plant.
The whole thing is silly, I
know that. She never even saw the
plant. It was from her funeral – she was
dead before someone even ordered the damn plant. But I carried that plant across country with
me. I bought a big, sturdy, beautiful
pot to put it in. And I kept her
alive.
For years I tended
it. Watered it. Cut back dead leaves. It ended up living in a dark corner of the
dining room – not an ideal spot for a plant, but it was BIG and we didn’t have any
good places to put it. I even joked
about it with my sister. That plant was the
most “adult” thing in my life. Other friends
had gone on to take care of children and have successful careers, but me? Me? Well,
I had kept a plant from my mom’s funeral alive for a decade.
And that wasn’t an easy
task. We leave town for long periods and
our poor plants basically have to fend for themselves. I water the hell out of them before we go and
cross my fingers. Sometimes I ask
someone to come in once or twice and tend to them, but most of the time I just
cross my fingers and hope they survive. And
for years that one did.
But now it’s dead.
 |
| Dead |
I couldn’t accept that it
was gone. I let it sit, dead, in that
pot for quite some time before admitting I had failed. The piece of her, the LIVING PIECE I had squirreled
away, that I could see everyday… I killed
it.
Knowing that Mary Day, the
anniversary of her death, was coming up, I decided that I needed to confront
this all. Examine my feelings. Put some closure on the connection, as
ridiculous as it may seem to others, that I had with that plant.
I had David help me carry
the heavy planter out to the porch. I couldn’t
do it right away – I had to leave it out there a few days while I considered
it. Then, one afternoon, I unearthed
that dead plant. I took it out. I threw it away. It felt like I was throwing a part of HER, my
mother, away. But I did it. I let it go.
And I bought a new
plant. A big, shiny, healthy, beautiful
plant. It was hard to choose which one
to get, but I finally picked one and lifted it into my shopping cart. And wouldn’t you know, as I pushed it around
the store, a couple of people, complete strangers, said, “Wow, what a pretty
plant!” and “That plants is gorgeous! It
looks so healthy”. Of course they didn’t
understand the significance of it all. To
them it was just a plant. But their
simple, kind words kept me moving in the right direction.
I cleaned up the big pot,
and I planted the new plant. Turns out I
planted it too high and every time I watered it, dirt and water poured down the
side. So, like so much in life, I had to
admit I needed help and ask David to assist.
One afternoon we took it out of the big pot, rearranged, and gently
lowered it back in.
So far it is healthy. It is living.
 |
| New plant |
But it isn’t part of my
mom. It is just a plant. A pretty, green, living thing. It, too, will die. I rather doubt it will tough it out as long
as the other plant did. But when it
dies, I won’t be as sad as I was when the other plant died. When this one dies, it won’t be my failure
and it won’t mean me giving up on tightly held last strands of her.
As the years go on and her
life fades more and more, the tangible pieces of her I cling to also
disappear. Her shoes that I wear
disintegrate on my feet. Her sweaters in
my closet get moth holes. The terra
cotta frog of hers has cracked and broken.
Someday I will lose her necklaces.
And I will try to remind myself that it is not my fault. That guilt is inappropriate. That the physical is unimportant.
The plant is dead.
I am learning. Learning to keep her alive in my mind, in my memories,
in my dreams, and not in things.
I love you Mom.
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~Graham