Remember as you read there is hope, and each day, I’ve continued the journey on that self-care and discovery to find hope and even joy after the storm.
I never had a green thumb …
My father and his sister both did a master gardener’s course. They shared an enjoyment of working in the yard and gardening. I always thought Dad would’ve been happier working as a landscape architect instead of insurance.
But in the almost 22 months since we suddenly lost Corrie, I’ve come to understand the love of good earth.
I often reference nature in my poems.
Believe you fall in love, but it is too easy in the way the wind sweeps pink petals from the Cherry Blossom Trees. Beauty in its time. Something dark in disguise in the way we are comforted when a parent tells us, “There are no monsters under the bed.” They’re waiting out in the world on the road sides where we shed the belief that Dogwood Trees stay in bloom.
from “For the love of cherry blossom trees” by rebecca t. dickinson
why we need this good earth
I find an easy peace in nature that I sometimes struggle with discovering in acquittances and friendships with other adults. It becomes more complex as time passes.
Saying anything to any person in the early years after your child suddenly dies reminds you of a pinball machine during a time when you play the game in the back of a pizza place. Put in 25 more cents because you cannot keep the pinball up, and oh!, it goes into the hole.
from “PINBALL MACHINE” BY REBECCA T. DICKINSON
During the past week, I’ve come to terms with the fact that a break occurs in you due to grief. There is a before and after. Sometimes friends and acquittances will stay beside you after.
Sometimes you lose acquittances and friends in the long after because they move on while you grapple with everything broken around you.
You have to go to the grocery store, see the little girl with chestnut curls ask for a balloon, and then forget why you’re there. You have to go to work. You have another child to feed.
From “pinball machine” by rebecca t. dickinson
You miss those who cannot stay, or grow distant, but you also understand.
You grow tired and weary of the world when you’ve done something perceived as wrong because you’re trying to hold it together, and you’re judged. Then you wonder: “Why does it matter?”
You wonder “Why does it matter?” in trying to maintain a relationship when you feel the distance grow, or your temper oozes because pain becomes too much.
But everyone has a thought about how things should go. Some will express what you need to do, deadlines, what you say, and shouldn’t say. For goodness sakes, close the door. Be mindful of what you say. “You should do this.” “You should do that.”
They don’t see you trying. Really you’re just surviving, and talk to yourself about why you need to put on shoes. “Come on,” says the body builder part of your soul, “there is a reason why you must get out of bed, stretch, and put on your shoes.”
FROM “PINBALL MACHINE” BY REBECCA T. DICKINSON
There is a BUT.
But, I also found some acquaintances become friends.
This week, a co-worker grabbed me, and held me in her arms because she, too, knows loss. As time has passed, we’ve slowly been drawn to one another because we understand that there is a long after.
The timeline of grief is not an Amazon Prime service.
me
There is a desire to reach out, but in someone who shares tremendous grief, no matter who they’ve lost, there exists a common understanding that loss does not vanish. You cannot simply be who you were before.
In fact, I’m a person who rarely hugs, but she hugged me so tight that it reminded me of Corrie.
Another told me of how the loss of her father changed her entirely. She told me, “I never realized how much self-care goes into grief.” She understood the stomach pains, the waking up with your heart pounding, and you can’t explain why.
Then, where I had anxiety over an issue early in the week, I found another sort of peace that I haven’t felt in the coming of spring, since March 2020. I found a sense of accomplishment, hope and joy in the sunlight as I began working in the backyard, front and in Corrie’s garden.
I turned my mind from the those I felt I was losing or had disappointed, and I, a former child with a brown thumb, dug with my bare hands into the earth.
There it was.
Mud, soil and roots met together between my fingers. Without knowledge of proper gardening other than watering and newly learning which plants need partial sunlight and full sunlight, I observed my hands caked in the good earth.
Because before I can find a version of myself that will coordinate with the world, I must dig, plan and plot.
As I dug, I worked to let the words of judgment leave the turmoil of my soul.
Each day, I did something new. Mostly, I prepared Corrie’s garden and parts of the yard for new plants where some were that had not survived the winter. I was not ready last year to fully take care of the garden, but here below the mountain, in the sway of the wind and the sunlight, I heard my daughter calling me.
“Mommy, come water the garden.”
Corrie's Season 