Not long ago, or maybe long ago, I’m not sure, as time is distorted to me now, I noticed large bins of pumpkins flanking the doors of my grocery store. I was confused. Had the mums already come and gone because they always come before the pumpkins, don’t they? I didn’t buy any, not even the small ones that I put in a wooden bowl on my kitchen table. I’m not sure why. Maybe the same reason I didn’t buy the mums, or why I didn’t purchase bedding plants this spring. It felt like too much work. Too much work for someone who, in previous years, filled large patio pots with flowers and ornamental grasses, then covered them once or twice in the early spring to protect them from the snow, because even after living in Boulder for six years, I still can’t seem to remember that Boulder still gets snow into April and sometimes May. Those same large pots are filled with the dead grasses and plants from last year, along with clumps of sedum from a nearby plant, whose seeds were graciously carried by the wind, adding a bit of color to the tangle of brown.
I have a small backyard landscaped with deep beds lining the perimeter and a flagstone path that cuts through the grass to a gate in the fence leading to the alley. It has been a source of pride and joy, and a lot of work that never felt like work to me.
Mid-summer, in 2024, I was sitting on my patio reading. The new renter to the guest house next door was on his porch talking on the phone. I could hear him, but not see him, as the branches of my peach tree kept me hidden. The guest house is above a garage, so he was looking down on my yard.
.
“I mean, seriously, you should see this yard and all the flowers in bloom. It’s incredible!”
It took me a minute to realize he was talking about my yard. I tucked in deeper into the branches of the tree to remain hidden and craned my head as close as I could get to the fence that separated our yards to hear more. I smiled with pride because he was right. My yard was incredible.
That renter is long gone and has been replaced by someone else, whom I haven’t overheard telling someone on the phone how beautiful my garden is. My garden isn’t beautiful this year. It’s overgrown and looks like the person who lives there has been away a lot because she has, and when she’s home, she doesn’t want to garden. She’s still trying to understand why.
I’ve not weeded or cut back my flowers, which are in the “leap” year of the “sleep, creep, leap” growth cycle, and leap they did. Small wild geranium plants that hugged the edge of my patio have formed knee-high mounds, covering the small plants planted next to them. I used to love gardening, but right now, in this time of my life, I don’t. Putting my hands in the dirt was one of the ways I tended to my soul. Now, in a year that my soul feels like it’s either on life support or cowering from exposure, I need to garden, but I can’t, and I don’t know why, except that gardening makes me sad. The only time I spend in my garden is to walk down the flagstone path, through my gate, and into the alley to take out my trash and after a season of doing nothing, all I see is work.
Before I reworked my backyard in 2021 and added a patio with a pergola, Emery and I would drag chairs to sit under the redbud tree. It was 2020. We sat six feet apart and wore masks. Or at least we tried to wear masks, but they never lasted long because we needed to see each other’s smiles. Emery usually had baby Muna on her lap, my 3rd grandchild, whom I couldn’t hold because of what we were still calling the “coronavirus.” Even at six feet apart, our conversation felt intimate, like we were curled next to each other on the couch. We were struggling with the isolation due to the virus, and Emery was overly cautious with me because most of the ones who were dying were in my age range.
I told her about my plans for the backyard — a patio with a pergola, and a table with a lot of chairs to accommodate gatherings of friends and family. She told me to skip the table, get more comfy chairs, and we could eat from our laps. We didn’t always agree. The following year, on Mother’s Day, my children, their spouses, and their children sat around my table under the pergola, enjoying a beautiful brunch. We had waited a long time to be together, and even though we were still under the threat of COVID, we made it work.
I wonder, when do memories just become memories and not triggers to a loss that still makes no sense and still leaves the stabbing pain that it did almost eleven months ago? Or does that ever happen? I wonder when I’ll be able to open the door to my back porch and not think of the morning of March 24th when the city of Boulder issued a stay-at-home order. I got a text from Emery saying she had left something on my back steps. She had left a small box comfort from local businesses near me, including teas and tinctures to help support my immune system and lungs. We worried about each other. We missed each other.
I recently rewatched The Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. And yes, at this point, it was like watching Steel Magnolias again. It brought back memories of Emery and me cozied up on my tooled-leather couch in Leawood, Kansas — the same couch that Emery had me write a contract for, which we both signed, stating that I would give it to her, and no one else, if I ever decided to part with it. I tucked it under the cushion for safekeeping. Three years later, when I moved to Boulder, I parted with the couch, but not before I checked with Emery, who said she didn’t have room for it. I watched two men carry it out of my house during my estate sale, remembering the contract hidden under the cushion, a buried treasure that likely shared space with hair ties, knitting stitch markers, and an assortment of coins. We sat on that couch and ate potato chips, French onion dip, store-bought cookies, and drank red wine. It felt recent, yet so long ago. Grief likes to get in there with memories and really messes things up when it comes to time. How was that nine years ago? How was it almost eleven months ago that Emery died? I often forget what month it is or even what season, even though the leaves are changing to oranges and reds in Boulder.
On a recent drive to the airport, I asked my driver (not concerned Kevin, whom I would meet on my ride home) what the large building project was that we had driven by. He told me it was high-density housing for CU students, then went in for a deeper explanation than I wanted to hear. I regretted asking the question. I started to ask him, simply out of politeness and boredom, if the students had returned to school yet. I caught myself. It was the middle of October.
Time is confusing and ever-changing. Two and a half days in January were longer than the nine and a half months that have followed. Memories wrapped in grief have taken over my calendar. Pumpkins replaced chrysanthemums that replaced bedding plants, and it still feels like I should be watching for March tulips to emerge from the soil. This grieving business is exhausting, yet oddly beautiful because of the love it represents. It’s like glitter. You think you’ve gotten it all cleaned up, then the sun reveals a sparkle, and you realize it will never be all cleaned up because it will never be gone.
Losing Emery has rearranged me—what I loved, where I found comfort, and the calendar of my life.
I forgot that I love to garden and that it has been healing for me in the past. Will I remember that I love decorating for Christmas when I see the greens flanking the doorway of my grocery store? Or will I walk into the store, whispering next year when I pass them, their scent following me into the produce section?