Remembering

A wonderful surprise yesterday led me to an old discovery today. 

Barbara, a friend of my Auntie’s, has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  No one forgets her.  Her laughter is infectious and she brightens up any corner.  I find that I gravitate to her, almost like a kid pulling on apron strings, when I’m at a gathering she’s attending.  I love her stories of backpacking through the Middle East and her gruel-talk (that is what my cousin calls her healthy food.)  So, this week when I received a call that she and her cousin were going to be heading South and wanted to stop in for an evening, our whole family was ecstatic.  Daisy shrieked with joy over a new audience and Dan exhaled as he knew Barbara wouldn’t leave without performing her physical therapy magic on his injured arm.

The night was full of lots of talking and sharing – stories of cows, chickens and farm life on our end.  Barbara bubbled with affirmation.  And Jeanie, Barbara’s  cousin, shared her great knowledge of herbs and tinctures and all things made to soothe.   I learned healing applications for the calendula, echinacea, thyme and oregano growing in my garden.   When they left, I found a bouquet of lavender on our bed as a thank you.  Sometimes visitors leave you a little tired, but today I felt invigorated. 

I was excited to grab my old reference books and relearn about herbs and their properties and set about Googling information.  Then I found an old book I had in my library called Little Herb Gardens.  I had almost forgotten I had it.  I flipped open the book and it landed on a page I last used – Fresh Herbs in The Kitchen.  And there it was.  A picture my father had taken that I used as a book mark.  The picture was of a typical juniper hedge that my father had turned into a bonsai tree.  I had found the photo in his house after he died and it always reminded me of what a garden represents to me  –  the circle of life and death and rebirth.  There was something magical about that photo to me.  He had turned a stinky, ugly juniper bush that once was taking over the front door of his run-down rental house into something beautiful he was proud of.  Sort of like his life in sobriety – full of dreams and intention and creation.

You know how smells can instantly trigger memories?  Well, this photo transported me in a Nano-second to my father’s garden, to my father.  To makeshift- trellises of sweet peas and varieties of hot peppers and brilliant tomatoes. And then I thought of the patch of chives I still have growing in my garden that I took from his garden after his memorial service in 1995.  Instantly I could feel – not just remember – what my father means to me. 

Thanks Barbara and Jeanie.

POST NOTE:  As I was saving this to my blog, Daisy and Dan returned from a day at the river.  Daisy came in my office and asked me to pull down a music box off of my bookshelf.  It’s up way high, and she never asks about it.  It is one of the very few things, besides the above mentioned book, that I have that my father gave me.  It’s playing a song he always sang to me as a little girl.   I think maybe I ought to sign off and go to the garden…