The succession of flowers in the garden have always stirred a sense of mourning – the swift passage of time measured in petals spent in this brief season of sunshine and warmth. The daffodils were in full bloom, their trumpets of yellow and gold announcing spring when we received the news no parent should ever hear. It seems like a million years ago, yet every morning when I wake, it’s yesterday. I speak to her in the present, and I remember her in the past – her birth, her first words, steps. And I remember her in the garden.
It wasn’t always as passive as it was these last few years of relaxing there. Picnics – like the ones my mother prepared under the long ago pear tree I alone remember. Jill was my first, and there was nothing, no one, to interfere with the long, languid days of picnics — picnics and game picnics and book picnics and song picnics and coloring picnics – all spread on a quilt with the loveliest view of the garden, a daily, deliberative selection of its ever-changing face. She christened the gardens with names. Observing that the very first, a circle with two semi-circles above it on a bank, resembled two eyes and a nose, she told me it needed a smile. So another garden curves beneath the circle and these geometrical plantings, filled with old-fashioned perennials which would be described as a “colonial garden”, is called “the face”. Later in life she enjoyed container gardening, likening the selection of annuals — to fill the assortment of baskets and urns, coal bins, pails and tool boxes — to accessorizing with lipstick and nail polish. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to convince her of the satisfaction found in weeding, but she sure knew how to use a shovel. Once while visiting here on vacation, she volunteered to dig two gardens to accommodate surplus astilbes, accomplishing in one morning and an afternoon a task that would have consumed a month for me. When we were in Texas taking care of Juan’s mother, she would call me to describe in detail the flowers blooming daily. “I have a new favorite,” she would say, the first step on the gardener’s path. It was the summer of her senior year, and she took care of everything, even the gardens.
Jill was capable. Capable, brilliant, articulate, loyal, empathetic, generous to a fault. She loved to talk, and those of us who spoke with her regularly miss those conversations the most, and those laughs. She was the funniest person any of us has ever met. And those hugs. A friend once said that hugging Jill was like hugging a tree. She was so strong, and comforting. Though she might not have inherited a gardener’s need to garden, she was a writer, an incredible writer. What she wrote was from the heart, humble and vulnerable. I always encouraged her to write – just write – wherever she was in her life. She had such a story to share. I still have faith that we can find it, that it materialized on paper. For now I piece her words together, and I’m so very glad I saved all of them.
Words from others have poured in these last several weeks from her hundreds of friends, She was always such a people person. And there was such a diverse group of people in her wide circle, so many cultures, religions, races, voices, and experiences. I remember a Catechism teacher explaining to a little child who asked – if God made us all in His image, why do we look so different? – to imagine a garden where every plant was exactly the same, that the beauty is dependent on the diversity of its colors, forms, and the wildlife it attracts. Jill’s, then, was the most beautiful garden of all.
She was a defender of marginalized people, a crusader against injustices. Her advocacy for others and for causes came without reservation. She never considered the burden that can sometimes be, never remained silent for fear of consequences. An inherited trait, I fear. And one that her son will learn, as we pass along that generational torch. He will inherit all of his mother’s values – loyalty, compassion, generosity, tolerance, and above all, love. Jill’s love of her son Felix was evident to even the most casual acquaintance. His resilience, which is evident to everyone who meets him, is born of believing in and embracing the love his mother instilled in him.
And we instill in him a love of nature. He loves all of those picnics and he loves to explore. A keen observer, he’s fascinated with ants, grasshoppers, crickets. He makes friends with worms. He chases butterflies, birds and dragon flies, and names them. He notices new flowers and wants to know their names. He has “new favorites”. Juan is precluded from mowing a patch of bluets which were meant for a bouquet for his mother, so our lawn still holds a small pool of them, a delicate reflection of the sky. We indulge him. We play hide and seek in the gardens together, study insects, collect seeds, build castles in the sandbox his grandfather made him, which reminds me of the sandbox my father made for his granddaughter. It became, as this one has become, my favorite garden feature.
In return, Felix will continue to instill in us a sense of wonder, that there’s a really good reason to rake the leaves in fall, that winter snow is more than the dread of shoveling it, that spring’s mud puddles are delightful, and that there’s nothing in this life better than running around barefoot in the yard at night, dancing with fireflies.
He tells me he doesn’t want to forget his mom. He won’t. I won’t let him. He wants to know what she was like when she was little, when she was his age. Such a long time ago, yet yesterday. I have so many stories to share.
As I sit in the garden and write this, the daffodils have all faded. In their place lilacs curve at the entrance to the grape arbor, daisies freckle the garden where irises rise on fleur-de-lis spears, and in the distance, azaleas sparkle in the woodland and viburnum rests on the lawn like an island of white lace. Soon the garden will fill with summer roses, astilbes will brush the air, swallowtails will flock to the butterfly bush, hummingbirds to the coral bells, honey bees to the lemon balm. And then the indigo balloon flowers will burst open, and the trumpets of lilies, and the phlox will surprise us with their seed swapping shades. And then the flowers of fall, the billowing blue clouds of wild aster and the cushions of chrysanthemums, will close on another winter, covered with the snow Jill loved so well.
The garden, nature, the seasons, march on, and so must we.