I share a video today that …
could be considered intense.
During this summer season, I’ve made a few changes. I’m on the road to earning my educational doctorate, started posting garden content on TikTok (@corries_mommae) and a nutritional plan to help with a recent diagnosis, and I’m rediscovering something. Yes, (written as a sarcasm), I gave up my plan to transition careers from education to truck driving.
My Testament
Today, I found someone I never expected to see.
After shutting down many parts of my personality all during stages of healing, dealing with John’s cancer, and questioning myself: Am I good enough; I found a clearer conception of self. I found me.
In the grief journey, I never stopped loving my husband, son, family, or caring for friends, co-workers and students. During a time when I needed to be vulnerable, a few discussed me in terms of my grief, daughter, or actions taken with a grief mindset. This included when my husband was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer when his hemoglobin was low.
He was dying one year after Corrie graduated to heaven.
Imagine this: you care about the people around. You’re already neurodivergent. You know one or two individuals are talking about you in the early stages of your grief. To make them feel more comfortable you begin to shut off parts of your personality, which includes the love for your child.
Finding Community
For the people I adore, and who are okay with me being myself; I will return a most loving friendship. For every bad, there is more good, and I’ve experienced wonderful and warm friendships at work in the past two years. It has made so much of a difference in my life.
But I’ve also discovered a supportive community in the gardening world of TikTok. Some might have you believe it is a social media chaos of Zenials dancing is evil. If you use it as a tool and for your niche, it is a positive space.
Another user, who I encourage you to follow if you’re on TikTok, is @m.c.clapyohands. I reposted a video he made in response to my comment. He showed me his variegated Pathos, a house plant, that he got after his father died in 2005. I watched this video over and over again.
With the voice of a radio DJ, he spoke about how he propagated the plant to share with family members. What a beautiful way to share the memory of his father, I thought.
I did not share his original video here, as it is his video, but it is available on TikTok. I also reposted it and stitched it. Below is my stitch in response to his video. You hear the very beginning.
If you listen in the video by @m.c.clapyohands, you hear him say his father’s death was in 2005.
That might seem like a long time ago, but when you love someone so deeply, all of their yesterdays are your nowadays. I’ve written before that telling someone to “move on” has a worse effect on someone in grief than an expletive. Just because you appear as a functional human being doesn’t mean you leave your love behind.
Love doesn’t get lost in the mail.
Love does not go to the spam folder.
Love isn’t a video lost in internet searches.
Love is now. Love is yesterday. Love is today, and it is the future. We become the people we do during grief because we are shaped by our loved ones’ sense of self.
Corrie is yesterday, my today, and tomorrow.
If you ever wonder whether I’m the only one that feels this way, you should see how our son, Hayes, planted a butterfly shrub for his garden. He took it protectively away from me, and dug his own location. It was for him to choose; not me. When I told him the plant looked sad, because he hadn’t amended the soil, Hayes returned, dug it up, and put amended soil around it.
Hayes chose to venture with me to S & K Greenhouse (special shout out to some of my favorite people in Shelby, North Carolina), and picked out plants. He felt the need to break ground, and start his own garden. I couldn’t tell him how to plant it, or where to garden.
Our Yesterdays gives us Tomorrows
John and I were a couple who didn’t think we might see tomorrow together in November 2021 when he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer before we went on our ten year wedding anniversary trip.
Now he’s the strongest he’s been in five years, dating back to before when Corrie earned her wings, and starting renovation work again. We decided not to take another trip to the mountains as we’re putting up a pool, have a view here, and about renovate two bathrooms.
We discussed our future, people coming to the farm, starting different business concepts, and even put him on TikTok for home renovation.
I owe a tremendous amount of thanks to my family, greenhouses S & K Greenhouse, Stacy’s Garden World (both in Shelby, NC), and Eva’s Garden Center in Kings Mountain, my dear friends who let me by truest self, and those wonderful creators in the TikTok community.
All content (videos, photos, and writing) by R.A. Bridges, Corrie’s Mommae
Corrie's Season 
thank you for sharing Corrie. I can relate to your journey, our beautiful daughter died. Katherine passed a few months before the Covid pandemic and as a teacher found myself home with no purpose. We had received some plants and started my passion for house plants, I find it therapeutic and have given many plants to others. My husband is a Gardner of the outdoors, we have a huge vegetable garden, he also finds digging in the earth and growing therapeutic as we both are on this journey navigating our grief.
Thank you for sharing some of your story. I’m sorry for the loss of your beautiful Katherine. If you don’t mind me asking, how old was she? How many house plants do you have? I also find it therapeutic to share plants. Right now, I do a lot of flower arrangements, and during the spring, I let my students take arrangements to other teachers. I try to do whatever I can, so other people never feel alone or this heartbreak. That is wonderful your husband found his garden niche, too, and I’m sure some of those vegetables are just about ready or will be soon. Thank you, truly, for stopping by!
Hi Rebecca,
Katherine was 20 yrs old and was at college, she fell from a ridge at night when her Outing club was hiking. She was doing something she loved doing and did so much in her short 20 years , she took a gap year and traveled to nine countries, volunteering in some of them. She had finally figured out that she wanted to pursue photography and was truly gifted with her sense of composition and subject matter. She was wonderful friend,had a great sense of humor and loving sister & daughter. She actually loved succullents so I had to take care of them I probably have about 20 different house plants. Like you I have some at school to enhance our classrooms. My husband grew up on a farm with green houses so it’s always been in him. Your daughter Corrie is beautiful , I have read some of your posts and they have helped me.
Blessings, Aimee
Thank you so much for sharing about your daughter. I enjoy hearing other people’s stories. Katherine sounds like such a talented and adventurous young woman. I bet she took beautiful pictures of her travels to the different countries. I’d love to hear where she visited. I studied abroad and traveled across some of Europe when I was in college. She sounds like such an intriguing and wonderful person to know. I’m glad you have the succulents. Sometimes the plants or another artistic gift are more therapeutic than we ever realize in the beginning. Thank you so much for your compliment about Corrie, and this is why I write because I don’t want anyone who has lost a child to ever feel alone. The pain itself is enough to endure.
Always your friend in grief and healing,
Becca