10.24.03
Guerilla Gardening
I was talking to my favorite Aunt Pam the other day, murmuring about this prolonged grief that some of our family seems to be suffering from over my Mom’s death last spring. If anything, the days seem bleaker to us all, the grief more overwhelming, the sadness of her being gone more perceptible, more profound. We e-mailed back and forth various theories about why this is, from it being a year now since she was first diagnosed with the cancer to it being a solid six months since she actually died and somewhere in our heads, the process of it sinking in and becoming a daily fact. Nothing in and of itself seems to come close to accounting for the heaviness in all our hearts and so, as is my daily affirmation: we go on, regardless.
The bigger part for me is, as a passive-aggressive procrastinator, there being only one thing left in doing to wrap up my Mom’s death and I’ve managed to drag it out for the last six months. Mom’s unhelpful instructions for her headstone being, “just make it unusual” have given us fits. After several trips to the memorial stone shop, we boys finally settled on a beautiful granite in swirls of silver, black, and gray and flecked with amazing shades of deep, iridescent blue. We found a sample stone we liked and I redrew it, tweaking out some details we liked or didn’t and then waited for the quote. Needless to say, when the quote came in last week at $11,000 we all felt a little defeated and pushed back to square one. Being pragmatists, we’re rethinking the stone and going shopping again when Jeff and I get back to Ohio in early November.
In the mean time, I related to Aunt Pam our latest little plan to memorialize our Mom, who was, if anyone, as about as anti-authoritarian as you were likely to find. This is the woman who thought upon my repeated dire warnings of impending criminal prosecution for the one pot plant she always had growing in her back yard that even were the police to discover it, they’d just ignore it because why would anyone want to bother a little old woman who isn’t hurting anyone with her own stash? So in that spirit of subversant horticulture, we’re ignoring the unwritten guidelines for our family cemetery and dappling her grave and that of my younger brother’s first daughter, Hannah, with a shitload of Blue Delft Hyacinth and Ipheion uniflorum bulbs so next April, after the snows of a bleak, gray winter, the ground over their graves will be carpeted with some pretty spectacular, fragrant, purple and blue flowers. I mean, why would anyone want to bother a little band of boys who aren’t hurting anyone with our own little stash of perennials?
October 24, 2003 at 8:23 am
I think that’s a beautiful idea. Thanks for making cry in my morning coffee.
October 24, 2003 at 11:24 am
I’m crying too, without coffee. And this song … gets to me every time.
October 24, 2003 at 4:17 pm
What a rush to cry and rejoice in the same second.
A. Pam said,
October 27, 2003 at 5:49 pm
I tried a sly group of transplanted violets from my yard but they just disappear by the next time I go to visit the grave. I really like your idea better and look forward to the great reward in the spring. You are right, who would want to bother a small band of brothers with such altruistic intentions. Besides if Matt and I work on the spring cleanup crew we can protect it. They haven’t gotten rid of my little asparagus plant on the edge of the cemetary have they? So chances are good that your anti-authoritarian gesture will be overlooked. You go guys!
October 29, 2003 at 7:37 pm
It is a truly inspired idea. Go for it!