Memory Garden

My garden is filled with memories, from deciding with Al how it should look–natural and trouble-free–to the plants and trees themselves.  It’s difficult to believe that was thirty years ago.

I look up to see the tree that I was drawn to after Al’s death, now known as Love’s tree.  I would sway with the dancing leaves, feeling his presence, peaceful and accepting.  The first autumn the year he died was particularly poignant, seeing the leaves fall, leaving the branches bare, the parallels inescapable to my aching spirit.

The Jacaranda tree was my mother’s favorite.  When she could still visit, she would sit at the kitchen window, looking at it for hours.  When she could no longer visit, I took videos of her tree, and we would look at them together at the Seacrest Village, the loving facility (not a contradiction) where she spent her last days.  We spent a lot of afternoon scrolling through my pictures.

The Birds of Paradise are from the home in West Los Angeles where I lived as a child.  They were my father’s favorite.  The plant has traveled with me everywhere I’ve lived.

I still sway with dancing leaves.  A lot of poems have been born in that garden.  It’s my favorite place to just be still and notice.  And now, we have the  caterpillars, the chrysalises, and beautiful  butterflies.

My garden runneth over with beauty and memories.