Always

A picture taken this week of the backside of Corrie’s Butterfly Garden, the original garden started after Corrie’s death. I transplanted the giant rose bush shrub that was located to the right of the angel to the front of the house.

Dedicated this Easter Sunday to the 6 killed in the Tennessee school shooting, my paternal grandmother, and my daughter, Corrie.

The three children, who were killed in the Tennessee school shooting, were nine-years-old–one year older than my daughter, Corrie, would be today. Remember them this Easter Sunday and always.

This statue honors the relationship between Corrie and her older brother, Hayes, in the shade garden.

Remember Her

“I wish you’d known her,” I said to my husband about my paternal grandmother.

“I wish you’d known my mother,” John replied.

On Friday night, dreams haunted me about my grandmother, and when I awoke; I’d realized this Easter marks twenty years since her death. I couldn’t go outside to work in the gardens and yard as I had all week, during my spring break while the sun was out because rain poured Friday and Saturday. On Monday through Wednesday, I’d worked each day until 7:30 p.m. in the evening getting 20,000 steps in a day on my FitBit.

Despite how I felt yesterday, I said, “I have to go find a plant to honor my grandmother in Corrie’s garden.” I ventured out to two of my favorite local nurseries.

A woman helped me by finding this lilac shrub. It was one of five left, and it looked the healthiest being in bloom. I call it Aurelia’s Lilac.

I am blessed to come from an extremely loving family, which gave me strength to endure judgment, loss, and hardship. While my grandmother wasn’t a gardener, she enjoyed looking out from her kitchen window into the her vast yard, much like John’s mother, Barbara. Where Barbara looked out at her dogwood and day lilies, my grandmother cut cheese into small square pieces (for my grits), as she observed sunlight on the lake.

When the tornado hit in February 2020, the storm knocked Barbara’s dogwood on it’s side. I begged John to rescue the tree. My father, some neighbors, and John replanted it with support in March 2020.

I remember sitting at the breakfast table across from her laundry machine, and I’d watch the sunrise hit the lake as the ducks came near the wooden swing. You’d have to get up early enough because the ducks were gone by mid to late morning.

My paternal grandmother was a strong, intelligent, and humorous woman, who like me, disliked her first name, Hortense. She shared antipathy towards her given name as much as I do, Rebecca.

My father tries out John’s new tractor that John bought one week ago.

Loss hits us at different times, stirs memories we might’ve believed were forgotten, and never possesses any logic. While I plant in a different USDA planting region than where Spanish moss whipped in the wind in some of the trees near the lake, I remember my grandmother:

dragonflies going from lily pad to lily pad …

my grandfather’s boat that never worked in my lifetime …

finding my older cousins toy soldiers long ago abandoned in the lake …

the neighbor’s cocker spaniels going after tennis balls in the lake …

the sound of my grandmother’s voice calling my name to come inside …

Grief or loss is simply the recognition of the greatest love.

As I considered words for today’s blog post, I simply wished to share pictures of the work John and I’ve done throughout the week this spring break. While he mowed, after healing from breaking his femur in January, I worked in each of Corrie’s three gardens. My husband, age 70, and me, age 37, worked from almost the moment the sun rose until dusk spread along the mountain’s horizon. My dad and our son joined us in the work. In each part and time, we felt our continued relationships with those we love, my grandmother and, always …

... Corrie …

… and on Easter Sunday, I remember and find the beauty of resurrection in green rising from the earth.