Into this Good Earth, Part 2: Ways We Remember Corrie and Each Other

“Into this Good Earth” is a part of a series I’m writing about my journey into gardening and caring for land as part of the grief journey after losing Corrie.

into this Good earth, part 2: ways we remember corrie and each other

Corrie had a pair of light blue garden gloves she’d use when we worked outside.

She constantly asked me, “When will we go outside and plant more flowers, Mommy?”

Most of what grew in 2019 and 2020 was planted by John’s mother. Those plants thrived. Corrie found flowers all around the farm from the dandelions to the small purple flowers that pop up everywhere.

Corrie picked these purple flowers along with others that grow in the grass before John begins to mow.

Corrie picked the flowers during this time two years ago. Those flowers are shown in my title picture, and in a picture that inspired a beautiful portrait.

One of Corrie’s signature pictures I took with the phone I still use.

When we walked outside on our paths John had mown in March 2020 for us, Corrie said, “Mommy, stop walking. I picked these flowers for you.”

Then Corrie would put flowers in my hair and hers.

For Corrie, there was no such thing as a flower you could not pick. In 2019, I was upset with her because she picked her paternal grandmother’s Tiger Lilies.

Corrie and her brother, Hayes, explore a part of the farm with us in fall 2019.

Before we ever moved to the farm, Hayes and Corrie finally had an Easter egg hunt. To the right of Corrie is where we constructed her garden.

Corrie never had a problem with the rain.

Corrie and Hayes loved being outside with us during every season.

At a park in my hometown, Corrie picked her usual flower.

As I learned when I picked Tiger Lilies in her memory during summer 2021, they closed quickly.

Then Corrie picked the wisteria. She wandered to the bush from the time she was a toddler, and her paternal grandfather still lived on his farm.

“Mommy, I picked these for you,” Corrie said as a trail of the small flowers fell off the vine. “Smell them. They’re so pretty.”

Two years ago yesterday wisteria blossomed, and it did at the same time last year. But frost came, and they died quickly for the season.

If there was a flower on the farm, Corrie found it.

She wanted to plant seeds when the pandemic shut everything down in 2020. I thought it was a great idea, but I was working double time as a teacher online and to our son.

But, through the end of the day of May 26, 2020; this early spring during the pandemic was the happiest time of my life. I got to be a mom at home, cook lunch and dinner with my kids, consider gardening for the first time, adopt puppies, and walk around the farm with the children and pups.

I shared a picture of these flowers the other day, but this picture is from March 2020 when Corrie picked them.

the land survives, and so do we

John, Hayes, Corrie and I had already been through so much.

When the tornado destroyed parts of our farm in February 2020, neither child wanted to stay away. The electricity was out, and so was the heat.

When both came back on a few days later, we returned home.

This tree fell in the area where Corrie’s garden would be located.

John, my husband, and Hayes cut up wood after the storm.

Corrie’s gloves, given to her by John, whenever she worked in the yard. She was becoming John’s closest helper. At only five-and-a-half-years-old, she helped us clear metal and debris out of the backyard.

Corrie put on her blue, gray, and green gloves, and helped us clear the debris from the backyard after the tornado. We did it, just the four of us, and we were able to feel pride and joy that day when looked back towards the house.

Corrie put on her gloves, and helped her family move metal and debris that had covered the backyard.

The tornado took down John’s mother’s Dogwood Tree.

But, the Dogwood Tree survived, and John and some friends replanted it.

The plants, woods, and other parts of the farm reveal a story of its own. Parts of John’s family are divided never to return for their own reasons, yet the land thrives.

Hayes never got to meet his paternal grandmother as a baby before she died, and perhaps never would have …

But, I cried for her Dogwood Tree. I knew she likely would’ve never accepted me, being thirty-two-years younger than her son. I asked John to save her Dogwood Tree because I felt it somehow meant so much to her, more than the burden of human emotions and regrets.

When we dig into the earth, we find a connection with our memories. We discover the roots of our relationships with those we may not see again. We spot a little green growth in the brown. Then we remember the bright moments with those we love.

Because a plant is more than just a part of nature, it exists as a powerful connection beyond our lifetimes.

We may lose people, friends and family, through change or death. When we turn our minds to the good earth, we transport our minds to the work of new growth. We establish a patience that came before Amazon Prime, and will outlast Amazon Prime, just as anyone who ever took planting seriously, outlasted the Blockbuster years.

into this good earth

After Corrie died, we requested live plants rather than flowers because John came up with the idea for a memorial garden. Building on that, my Dad imagined it in the shape of a butterfly. In June 2020, a few weeks after her funeral, friends and family members helped us move debris from the fallen barn, so we could get to the John Deere tractor. They helped us plant.

I was going through the motions. I didn’t know about gardening. I always walked the other way when Dad worked in the yard. I watered the plants when I was able to lift myself out of the immediate nightmare we faced.

How could I teach again? How would I care for a garden, and how would I help John put our family back together when we’re so broken?

Last week, in a dark moment, I took a serious look at Corrie’s garden, and the other areas where we’d planted after her death.

There was much I could not change. Hurt, anger, heartbreak and frustration all hit me the week before last.

Dad and I went to pick up more plants, soil, and mulch after I started working on the garden earlier in the week.

I cannot change many things, but I can work on how I care for myself because the emotions with grief are often more than what it seems the human condition can withstand. Yet, we make it.

In a part of my acceptance to care for what was broken, I broke ground.