Hearts and Ashes

Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day, love’s arduous and jubilant walk to the cross, to the center of all things, where the horizontal line of what we experience as time and narrative is pierced by the vertical line of Truth. The horizontal line stretching backward and forward farther than the eye can see. The vertical line generated like lightning. The crossing of these lines we call Now. 

The vocabulary of sacrifice can’t help but show up on such a day. We have to look at what slaughter has to do with offering. How can taking the life of another be an offering of my own? It can’t. That precious lamb or bull or child or virgin represents those things we worship more than anything: Security, a future, innocence, power. “Here,” we say, “I’ll give you my prize as proof of how much I fear you. To prove I love you. What’s that you say? You only want me? No. No. No. I’ll have to think about that.” And we walk it all back. How did we get so mixed up?  

I think of my sister’s final Now.  

Cindy woke up, peed, showered, had coffee. She walked the dogs, ate breakfast, dressed, did her hair, put together her lunch, stepped into shoes. The December day was bright and warm. The key went into the ignition. Music played. She put her elbow on the slight ledge where car door meets window, and tipped her head into her hand while waiting for a light to change. She arrived at work, said good morning. At her desk, she thought about what she needed to do to get ready for a trip to Sally’s cabin. And then, with an internal blow near her right temple, her light went out. In the shock, her heart arrested, but was too strong – from walks and gardening and time in the mountains – to stop. 

The EMTs couldn’t let her go. That decision came down to us, her family. 

So here we are. Here I am, braiding and unbraiding the threads of story and loss – a far cry from and resonant echo of letting go – and all tangled up with the language of sacrifice. 

Cindy’s life ended. The wave fell back into the ocean. This did not happen for a reason. She was not taken, stolen, smote, executed, or sacrificed. This is not to say her life had no meaning. And who knows if she offered anything up or what she offered, if she did. So much that isn’t ours to know. 

Here, only, today’s Now. No life is ever completed, and yet everyone is complete in the Mystery.

 

Who?

Herbstfreud. Sedum “Autumn Joy”

Cloudy equals cool, and I had energy.

Out I went. Took up the hose and showered the containers and drier spots on the flat corner lot. While I drenched the grapevine, a woman with shoulder-length grey hair strolled by. She stopped and chatted over the chain-link fence about the weather. How strangely cool it is, how quickly it can change in Colorado. Although, in her tidy black pants and pastel striped shirt, she wasn’t exactly familiar, it’s the sort of exchange I’m used to in a neighborhood of wide sidewalks and pedestrians. With a look of purpose and a contented smile, she strolled on.

By the time I made it down to the Sambucus, she was striding up the other side of the street. “Must be visiting one of the neighbors,” I thought as she stopped some 15 feet before the intersection and crossed toward me, again. She stepped up the curb with a little difficulty and seemed to get tangled as she walked through the tansy, coneflowers, and asters. Fearing she might stumble, I asked her if she needed a hand. “No,” she said, “if I can just make it through these weeds.”

Again, not so unusual. Natural equates wild equates weeds for lots of folks. Trying to sound firm and gentle, I said, “Those aren’t weeds. I actually work pretty hard to take care of that garden.” She stepped out onto the safety of the sidewalk. “Oh,” she said looking a little guilty. She regained her stride in her original direction.

As I finished up, she walked up the other side of the street, this time crossing the intersection. I thought, “Good for her, getting in such a nice walk.”

In I went, poked down something from the fridge for supper, and turned on the computer. Just as I opened an email, there was a knock at the door.

There she stood. Lost. Really lost.

“I was on my way home from work,” she said, “and my car stopped working. Then, I think it was my nephew who came and got it. Now, I don’t know where my car is.”

“Oh!” I said. “Would you like to come in?”

“I don’t want to bother you,” she said.

“Not at all,” I said. “Please, come in.”

“Thank you!”

“Here, sit wherever you’d like.” She perched on the love seat, her feet in tiny white walking shoes, snuggled next to each other. “Are you thirsty? May I get you a glass of water?”

She insisted she was fine.

I recapped her dilemma. “So, your car stopped working on your way home from work and your nephew came for it…”

“Or maybe it was my Dad…”

I notice she is empty-handed. “Someone you knew took your car with your purse and keys, and now you don’t know where it is.”

Though she looks not a day younger than 65, she nods like a school girl.

“Do you know where you are?”

“I think I’m somewhere between work and home.”

“Oh! Where do you live?”

She lights up. “Somewhere near downtown.”

“Do you know your address?”

“I think it’s 515.” Her air is at once satisfied and evasive. Five years ago, I had conversations like this with my dad. His dodging and deceits infuriated and frightened me. Suddenly, in the middle of my gut, I understood them more generously.

“Oh! Nice! Your house number is 515. And what street do you live on?”

“I. I don’t know.”

“Oh, I see!” I’m feeling tender and charmed. “Is there someone who might know where you live?”

She said her sister would know. But, if we called her, it would take a long time for her sister to get here. She tells me the name of the town where her sister lives. Had I heard of it? No, but if you tell me your sister’s name, maybe we can find her.

Over the next little while, I learn her name, her sister’s and brother-in-law’s names, her dad’s name. I try to locate them all via the internet on my phone. I find a number for her sister. It rings and rings. Every other line of inquiry leads us in circles. Her dad should be home from work by now, she’s certain. He always comes and gets her. He works at the hardware store. Did I know which one?

She worries, over and over, that she’s interrupting my supper. Are you hungry, I ask? Oh, no. My mom always has bowls of snacks set out for us when I get home from school.

I try her sister’s number again.

“What do we do now?” she asks.

“I know. How about if I call the police and see if anyone is looking for you?”

“OK! Maybe they’ll know where my dad is.”

“Or your car!”

“Right!”

So, I dial 911. All the while I describe her to the operator, she looks at those tiny white shoes, her hands folded in her lap. “Is she cooperative?” they ask. “Call, again, immediately, if she leaves.”

My new friend is going nowhere, if I have anything to say about it.

“What do we do now?” she asks.

“We’re going to wait for someone to come and take you home.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your supper.”

“Oh!” I laugh. “I’ve already eaten. Are you sure you’re not hungry?”

“No, no. I’m fine. My mom always has bowls of things out for me when I get home from school. I like your house. This is a nice house.”

“Thank you! How do you feel?”

“Oh, you know, it’s a little hard when you can’t remember things.”

“Ah. You’re a little anxious?”

“No, no, no. I’m comfortable here. This is a nice house.”

“I’m so glad.”

“But I’m taking up all your time. I should go.”

“Not at all! I’m enjoying your company.”

We talk in loops and tendrils until a young officer comes to the door. “And your name is?”

“Chris.”

“Chris, this is my friend, Karen. Karen, this is Chris. He’s come to give you a ride home.”

“Do you know where I live?” Her soft voice is full of wonder and relief. She stands as he tells her the address.

The evening is just fading as they walk out the gate.

“Thank you for coming!”

Absorbed in her conversation with Chris, she doesn’t turn.

I wave, anyway.

April Showers

For Cynthia P

Heartsick snow tumbles

Caressing tulip petals

Together they swoon

 

 

Remembering the Handsome

Last night, my dear friend, Judy, saw a streak of white in the lower periphery of her left eye. She glanced down, thinking it was Eddy.

“I know,” I said. “He’s still here.”

Most times I come through the front door, I hear him land on the floor from bed or sofa and wait for him to stroll into the entry and stretch, toes spread, before me.  A bow of acknowledgement, one would think, except, of course, he was a cat. More likely, he was continually attempting to teach me how I should greet him.

He was once, you may remember, my dad’s cat. But I often wondered, after he came to live with me, if he hadn’t just tolerated the long haul from his beginnings in the Carolinas and his nearly 14-year tenancy in Dad’s household, in order to come to me. He was a very patient feline.

The first time we met, he was sitting under a shrub near the stoop to Dad’s front door. I gasped. At his beauty, his presence. His green eyes met mine and seemed to say, “Where have you been?” Then he disappeared.

The night Dad breathed his last, Ed lay curled by Dad’s left hip, purring. I knelt on the floor, placed my hands on Dad’s and remembered all the words to “Over the Rainbow.” Together, we sang him home.

In the little house in the Gardenhood, Ed was courteous (never scratched the furniture, always used his box) and a very good trainer. Despite my staunch opinion that he would be safer indoors, he made it abundantly clear that he should be allowed access to and from the flat corner lot via the huge dog door. Even so, to assuage my fears and prove how wise he was about traffic and the ways of the human world, he often elected to stay behind the fence and watch as I tended the garden in the danger zone of the parking median. Well, not always, of course. Once he discovered catmint, he might follow me out there if the gate was open, just for a nibble. Oh, and fresh catmint aside, he wasn’t going to eat “health food,” thank you very much. Give me Friskies from a can, from a variety of different cans, in no particular order, and don’t for a minute assume you know which one is my favorite.

He showed his great intelligence in other ways, too. After all, how many cats do you know who watched Downton Abbey?

At first wary of visitors, he soon began granting us audience, allowing perfect strangers to run their hands down the wedding gown satin of his fur. He gained the admiration and following he knew all along he deserved.

If I was outside, then he followed. I might dash out to the compost between breakfast and leaving for work, and when I’d return, there he was, waiting on the back walk. I’d croon at him, and he’d stretch is full length and roll from side to side. Times like that, I’d stroke him wildly and set free clouds of kitty down. He’d wet the sidewalk with drool, then suddenly take a powerfully playful bat at my hands and prance off to be coy.

When he didn’t think I was watching, I’d see him on patrol, pussy-footing through unmowed grass out to the yard’s shrubby perimeter. There, without provocation, he’d dash pall-mall back through the dog door and go skidding over all the floors before leaping up to his station in the front window, the same place where, before him, Willie watched the world.

In winter, he preferred the warmth provided by interiors. Still, he needed thrills. So, he taught me to play. He must have been sure no one else was watching, otherwise, how else would he have lowered his dignity and chase or be chased by a dot of red light? Or heavens, to spend 20 minutes stalking and pouncing on the end of a string. How ridiculous.

Eightteen, I’d say to friends, and he still loves to play. His blood work results would be great for a cat half his age.

Then, suddenly, he was off his Friskies. Only three months had passed since his wellness visit to the vet, but his new blood work now pointed to cancer. Unknown variety, probably blood.

It was a swift decline, and he bore it with majesty.

I gave him what my friend, Nancy, calls an Egyptian burial. His grave was lined with sacred herbs and a swath of scarlet cloth. By his head, I placed photos of me and Dad. Under his nose, a can of tuna fish (dolphin-safe, of course), a bag of kibble, and a handful of fresh catmint. Around his paws, his toys. There’s a big slab of flagstone over the top. I’d have built a pyramid, if I’d known how.

The first nights, I couldn’t sleep. So, I dropped a pillow on top of the bed. Something to curve myself around, to avoid kicking, to warm the small of my back. A weight, heavier than gravity, anchoring the bed and me to it, just off geographic center. Eddy’s spot.

Two new moons have come and gone since he made his dignified departure. Now, looking at all the photos I took of him, only makes me smile. I’ve started singing in the shower, again, too. When I push aside the curtain, it’s easy to see him, sitting on the rug, like he used to, listening. “Where have you been, Handsome?” I want to ask him. “Where have you been?”

Fast Away…

Fast away the old year passes,

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

We’ve been waiting for this. For snow. For cold. For a productive gray sky and clean north wind. For a sense of something normal, however fleeting.

It’s been somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 and a half months since there was any appreciable moisture from above. October and November netted us a whopping .16″. That’s less than a quarter inch of precipitation in 61 days. Today’s snow might leave behind as much as the last two months’ total, and we’re glad for it.

Long term forecasts show the dry weather continuing. But for one dreamy Sunday, we have a little Winter.

As this old year passes, it’s time to consider what may be passing with it. Drought combined with rising water costs signal the passing of my original vision for the flat corner lot. So, before it has become a fully expressed garden, I will begin taking it in a new direction. With so many questions yet to ask,  Gardenhood goes on.

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses,

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

At the Beginning

Easing my body back into the shape of a gardener, I spent three two-hour shifts cleaning up. It was just the right amount of time to feel my muscles adjusting without hearing them complain.

Winter takes the garden down slowly, and never quite all the way. The gardener’s job is to finish what Winter set to, and yet, it doesn’t feel like finishing. It feels like beginning, the start of the gardening season, la Prima Vera, the first green, Spring.

As I crouch and snap the twiggy stalks or slice them down with pruning shears, I’m thinking of Elizabeth Erickson who was a teacher of mine when I was a much younger woman. Elizabeth is still on the faculty of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. I’d wager she still teaches far more than art. I turned to her as a spiritual teacher, someone who might help me unravel my tangles of passion and mystery. Bless her, Elizabeth simply invited me to go further into them.

On this first week back on my knees, I’m remembering particularly something Elizabeth said, not just to me, but to all her students, “You must always be willing to be at the beginning.”

I am bent for the umpteenth time to laborious tasks that could just as well put me in a state if Sysiphean futility.  Yet, here I am feeling a newly born wonder. Though the work is repeated and the setting familiar, the garden is never the same, nor am I the same in the garden.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “Though I am an old man, I am but a young gardener.” For him there was always more to learn, more to try, more to invent, especially in the garden. I’m with you, Citizen. Loving a garden renders us teachable.

I break up handfuls of descicated stems and stuff them in a sack to haul off for recycling. Only months ago these stalks were alive with leaves and flowers. They grew because that was their nature. They died because that’s what everything does. Now, I’m helping them become compost. If I sit on a meditation pillow, and pay attention to my breathing, I notice, at the end of each breath, there is a pause. It’s a very slight pause followed by an impulse to inhale. Crushing up stems for compost, my whole self feels the same impulse. It is to life.

Disturbing overwintered tufts, lady bugs meander up for some sun. Do they know they were asleep? Have they moved to the head of some insect line? Is it their turn?

When I was little kid, I could never push to the head of a line and always felt nervous and excited once I got there. I was too shy. I didn’t deserve to go first. I’m more comfortable going first, now, though I still won’t push. And as my elders (there are still a few) move on to the next world, I inevitably move forward in line. I find I’m willing to be at the head of this line, though not eager. I’m still so interested in the paradisical unions found by waking up in this world.

Moving on with my shears to the next clump, I glance up. Sunlight fires through the crocus. I laugh.

Comfort and Joy

Snow, at last, illumines the gardenhood. I went out before the sun rose to clear the walks. The sky, a deep Virgin’s blue, was crowned by the waning crescent moon. It was cold enough to give the air weight. Still a northerner at heart, I revel in mornings like this and seem to require one to fully awaken the sense of wonder, gratitude, and awe that dance in the holiday spirit. Carols and lights and the scent of fir trees help, yet there’s nothing like snow.

Jacket over hoody, thick wool socks and mittens, my heaviest jeans. By the time the mountain and spired conifers were gilded, work had warmed me through. Scrape, toss, scrape, toss – there is a lot of sidewalk around this flat corner lot. I stilled my shoveling often, changing postures, admiring the light and the sugar-fine comforter settled over everything.

How is it that crystalized air, frigid white powder from deep space, and back-aching labor give rise to a sense of well-being and delight?

“Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.”

Indoors, Ed the arctic white cat, remains. He’s having nothing of this wintry weather and its shiny deposit. We slept like stones, me under and he atop three inches of down rolled out for the occasion. Instead of prowling the fence-line for thrills, he’s attacking the stuffed mouse, tossing, batting, pouncing, biting, rolling on his back and scratching it with all four paws. I admire his adaptability. He prefers expeditions beyond the backdoor. He also prefers certain temperatures and dry toes. He makes his own fun, finds the windows, kneads my lap. All, it seems, on his own terms.

Another lifetime ago, suffering from extreme seasonal affective disorder, the approach of Christmas sent me spiraling, and not upward. The pressures to be cheerful, to make gifts, to out-bake my mother-in-law all rode me hard. What I craved was quiet, intimacy, reflection, and beauty. What I engaged in was manic activity and too many well-fed conversations in overheated, brightly lit rooms.

In the year following my deepest depression, with all my body chemistry telling me to hunker down and my psyche wanting a cure, I chucked the baking and the gifts. Imagine the strangeness of such an abdication in a Christmas-crazed society. Well, desperate times call for something untried.

My hands empty and calendar clear, my bloodstream untroubled by sugar, I listened. The eternal theme of the season kept calling to me: the coming of light to a darkened world, hope to the darkened soul. I put on my snowshoes, and took myself into the mystery, the slumbering woods, the quiet. I trekked out of the comfort zone of making traditional merry and into the comfort that evidenced eternity, that yielded joy. My entire relationship to Winter and to its timeless holidays was transformed. I grew to love Winter and take comfort in the rest it afforded.

Now that I live in an urban forest, is it any wonder that I revel in a dark, snowy morning?

I confess, I still pressure myself to have a merry Christmas and contribute to the merriness of friends and family. I worry that I’ll spend the day alone, won’t get asked to parties and concerts, will spend too much money, forget or disappoint someone. Crazy, I know. Even worthless old habits die hard.

At least now I can do more than fret and compete in the “merry-thon”. I can wake up in the thinning darkness and, with a quiet playfulness, answer an invitation made by fresh snow out into the bleak midwinter garden to find shimmers of glory and glimmers of peace.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Blessed Solstice. Happy Hanukkah.

May you find comfort and joy.

Falling Away

Small, golden leaves drift and spiral into the front garden from the honey locust trees, sentries in the median round the flat corner lot. Wearing long pants and short sleeves, I brunch on the aqua vinyl cushions, seduced and recalling snow. It is well into the seventies, and most of the neighborhood’s canopy is only hinting at their coming display. By the grace of some long-ago planter and the last-come, first-go nature of locusts, I have a private autumn.

A stab of trepidation surprises me as I discover the look of contorted, soot-black branches against the moody sky. Is this how a prophet feels when a vision of the yet unknown asserts itself? I could post a warning on the fence: Look up! Emptiness is coming! Practice letting go before it’s too late!

Round back, the largest Siberian elm has lost a limb. A turbulence of cloven hooves and leather wings leaped and swooped through the neighborhood at pre-dawn last Thursday, and carelessly tumbled it. The descent must have included an acrobatic bounce, because it landed across the fence even though it once extended across the sidewalk in the opposite direction.

The limb was one of three which formed its broad crown, rolling shade across the back yard in perfect counterpoint to the sun’s arced passage. I always knew the tree would have to come down some day. It’s warily branched and weak from disease. Now, missing the streetside limb, it seems to list toward the power line to the house. I will have to consult someone. I love the tree too much to make the decision too hastily and on my own.

I couldn’t deal with the limb the day it came down, nor the next day for that matter. I had too much scheduled, some things I couldn’t change. Work. Appointments. Taking my dad to see a behavioral therapist and his doctor. A much anticipated evening of laughter with friends.

When I got home the second evening, the sidewalk was passable, and there was a note on the front porch: “I will be over in the morning to help finish cleaning up. Jim”. I darn near wept. And sure enough at 8:20 AM, I grabbed loppers and gloves, drove the pick-up round to the mess, and he was already whittling things down to size. In a couple of minutes, Jim’s wife, Jo, joined us, and we had the limb stripped, bucked, and stuffed in the pick up in just an hour.

“How’s your dad?” They wanted to know.

“Not so great.” The honest answer.

All the report said was “significant cognitive impairment”. A full neuropsychological evaluation was recommended. For an 87-year-old guy, he’s quite physically well. His spirit still sparks, too. But his mind is falling away.

Today, though we drove just blocks from the gardenhood, to another appointment, I avoided the temptation to detour and show him the place. The drive had been confusing enough, and a diversion might have stressed him to the point of losing the clarity we’d been granted to share. As we got nearer his place, descending a hill, Dad sang. “Down in the valley, the valley so low.” I joined him. “Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.” We sang two verses, and those blue eyes, now the color of autumn sky where it pales to meet the horizon, caught mine in recognition. We still have time to practice.

We might try this old hymn:

For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies, for the love which from our birth, over and around us lies…

For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light…

For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and mind’s delight, for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight…

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and friends above, open hearts both sweet and wild…

Holy All That Is we raise this our song of grateful praise.

Wind

“If it would give you peace of mind,” said the nice, young sales rep of the security system company, “Then consider it. But if it would severely change your lifestyle, like making it impossible to eat, then don’t.”

I stood at the chainlink fence, throwing water on the parking median when he happened up.

It sounded like a great deal. The company would install a security system for the mere price of putting a sign on the corner. My homeowner’s insurance would go down. I would only have to pay about 80 bucks a month to stay connected. Just like a phone bill.

“That’s a lot of groceries,” I pondered.

“For you, it might be half that. Especially once your house insurance goes down. It might only cost you a dollar a day.” He was good.

That’s when the fellow on the bicycle rounded the corner and braked.

Without dismounting, he leaned over and broke off a stem of common white yarrow. Then a stem of Penstemon strictus, nice and purple. When he caught sight of us, he pedaled sternly on.

I smiled his way. He didn’t return it. I’m sure he could have used a larger bouquet. I quite wished he’d had the privacy to gather one.

“Nice flowers,” smiled the salesman on the sidewalk as the fellow on the bike stole grimly by.

“Yeah, I made a promise to myself a while back,” I countered the turning wheels in his salesman’s mind. “The street garden is for the neighborhood. Folks can, and they do, pick flowers.”

“Wow, that’s nice,” the young man with the notebook and the dollar signs said with genuine admiration. But I could see his hope fading. She who lets passers by pick flowers she plants, weeds, and waters, is an unlikely candidate for a security system.

“A dollar a day. Not bad,” I gave him. “Even so. Three sixty-five a year: I can think of a lot of things to do with that, and they would all have a lot higher priority.”

No lingering departure. He was off to speak to “other neighbors”.

To say it’s been dry would be a supreme understatement. It’s impossible to predict when, or if, the drought will end this year. Fire feasts on dry grass and pitchy timber across Arizona, New Mexico, and places I know well in Colorado.

Had the tan salesman offered me the security of a monsoon season, I might have bitten. He could have played me like a trout until my senses caught up to me. No such security can be offered by a mere human on a sidewalk, no matter how perfectly chiseled and empathic.

I strummed the spray head at the end of the hose through every cultivated part of the yard. The fellow with the small boxers strode punctually down the walk. I saw him coming and let go the handle. Pleasantries were exchanged, and the fur person named “Maddie” wanted to stop for more, but was urged on.

The rail thin fellow who frames for a living swung up to the curb in his long, white pick up. We nudged incrementally closer to a date to come by for wine in the back yard, accompanied by an opportunity (gladly) to pick my brain about what and how to plant.

One of the first to introduce himself, what seems like aeons ago, slipped out of his gray house for a smoke on his front stoop. I’ve always been grateful for his “cackling hen” that the yellow apartment buildings across the street can get wild on 4th of July, and for his pledge to keep on eye on me. Blue tooth in ear, he awaited the online support gods to grant him fruitful audience. Though his own yard is completely unattended, I was still touched when he complimented the progress in my landscaping efforts, and was thoroughly impressed when he told me there used to be Ribes in the corner where our lots meet. Ribes! How many folks know the Latin for currants? Or would understand that they would be strangled by an overgrown volunteer elm?

He stepped over to see the serviceberry I planted along our boundary. Dogs inside, content with his presence on the stoop, bark their complaints. I understand. Willie, though quiet, would have purchased himself on the back of the sofa to track my whereabouts. Neighbor man’s voice goes all soft as he calls in to quiet his companions. I understand. There is a special voice for the ones who wag when we come home. I want to tell him about Willie. I’m sure he’s already understood.

His phone calls him in. Wait! Wait! I want to talk fruit! More importantly, I want to cast off my shroud of mourning and find out who you are.

Moment passed, I simply must consider planting Ribes aureum “Gwen’s buffalo”, a 5-6′ shrub with black fruit. In my neighbor’s honor, of course.

Not much later, the wind parades up the street. I am not so self-absorbed to think it does so for my personal benefit. Yet, as the freshness of it sweeps through each room, I resolve: Tomorrow, I will take a morning walk for the first time since that old soul led me from the end of his leash. It’s time. Time to revive the endorphins in my system. Time to honor the joy that little four-legged guy brought into my life.

Departure

At the farthest end of the parking median, cold rain gently drives High Plains flower seeds into welcoming soil.

Neighborhood beaks make serious dips into the feeders, pecks at the suet, and territorial chirps from dripping branches. The predicted low will flirt with freezing, and as a precaution, both shed and livingroom are stuffed with annuals, most of which arrived Friday on a semi from Denver.

Delivery day was nothing short of manic. While sun spangled this flat corner lot, a collective of gardeners thrilled at the beauty of vibrant plants and blossoms, freshly liberated from growing houses. We counted flats, shuffled them into a mosaic of who ordered what, toted them off to further destinations, and chatted over chilling coffee on the front porch.

Between arrivals and departures, I got laundry out on the lines, ran the mower, sorted my own stash, and tackled some serious tidying out in the utility area behind the cedar fence. It seemed like I was totally engaged. In all honesty, I was barely there and had to remember to breathe.

The chain link gate between car port and back yard stood horribly open, accommodating garden cart traffic, yes, and signifying a keen absence. No Willie to watch for escape.

Two weeks ago, May Day, and while the neighbors gathered friends to dance ribbons around a tall pole, snow fell. The temperature followed. A low of 25 Fahrenheit, with crab apples, cherries, and plums in full bloom. Fragrant spires of lilacs towered along the alley. Thinking a hard freeze might take them, I took the kitchen shears and cut a bouquet. It perfumed the livingroom where I shut all the window shades and let the thermostat kick on the furnace.

I told myself I’m more prepared for this in the fall. Waning daylight and cooling air ready my expectations. I take in the geraniums, say goodbye to the tomatoes. A rightful sense of melancholy adds a note of poignance to my thoughts, appropriate, in season. A spring freeze, by contrast, is counterintuitive, contraindicated, and surfeits doom.

I did my best to shut out that blasted night.

Then, standing still, deciding whether to go outside or look for a bed to nap on, Willie’s legs slipped out from under him. He was an old dog. Systems fail. He’d been slowly, increasingly wobbly. These things happen, only, damn, not in Spring. Spring is for friskiness. We let go of pounds, inhibitions, useless clothing, not old friends.

I shivered through the next day, even though we stayed home from the Monday garden and kept quiet together in the office. We visited the vet and came home with pain medication and hope. After 48 hours, there was only further decline. Two more office visits and two more medications and still worse.

Each stage of departure became the new norm. I adjusted. I knew. I accepted. I resisted. I consulted. I waited. I witnessed. I hesitated. I wanted. I decided.

Very late, at the tipping point of Mother’s Day, asleep in my arms, his heart stopped.

My body remembered how to wail, a deep and awful surprise.

Mother’s Day, what could I do? The brave old soul was gone. My companion’s deep brown eyes, nowhere to be seen, nowhere seeing me. I gardened. I dragged hoses, ran the mower over cowlicks of grasses, planted penstemons in the rock garden, apologized to weeds before blading them out of the earth. And, as I plodded in and out of the back yard, I always shut the gate.

Willie never cared for the days I darted all over the place, front to back, side to side, going nowhere interesting while giving the appearance that I was about to depart. When I settled back inside, he’d step on the nearest bed and pin me with a look, “Alright, will you stay put?”

But none of us do, nor can we, stay put.

There’s a mammoth river in the center of this continent. I grew up 85 miles from it’s dark water. As children, we tried to hold our breath over the bridge to the old home grounds where kin abided. We held our breath so that our souls might not fall in among the catfish and fertile silt. Every creek and river whose name I knew ended there, no matter where it began, or how it sang, or whose forest or field it slid inexorably through.

Today, an unholiday Sunday, that river is swollen almost beyond memory. And though I walk and breathe, converse and garden, even laugh a thousand miles away, it’s that river I feel.

Thank goodness it will crest and recede.

Thanks to every friend who understands when I carry the little ash-filled box from room to room.

And thank you, Willie.