This is a repost from August 21, 2009 . . .
There is a crepe myrtle in my front yard. I bought it last year on May 20. One year after Lydia's death. A tree seems like such a befitting memorial for a loved one that you will never see again. I went to a local nursery to browse their crepe myrtles. See, Lydia always said that she and her Nani would line the driveway of the house where she would have a family with these beautiful trees. It seemed like the only proper tree to honor her with. I bought the smallest. And the most expensive. It is a Dynamite Crepe Myrtle. A tiny dwarf of a tree with the name "Dynamite." Lydia all the way.
I carefully and methodically loved this tree. I planted it while listening to Madonna. Pouring sweat in the heat. Eyes stinging. It felt right. I didn't know that I was pregnant. As instructed, I watered the tree every three days. "Let the roots search for water." That's what the tree-man said. I would count the days, pour the hose over my tree for at least five minutes. Drenching. Giving life. Providing an opportunity to grow and live and experience a lifetime spent in front of my house, watching my children play and offering beautiful gifts of dynamite red flowers. I would stand and compare the height of the small tree to my own five feet, eight inches. When I wasn't watering, I was examining budding blooms. Criticizing feasting insects. Taking joy in their death, watching them slow after a pesticide treatment, flicking their dry bodies with deep pleasure.
And then, she bloomed. A small spot of red in front of the yard where the hundred year old pine was uprooted and thrown by a tornado only a month before. I enjoyed her flowers. There was such a sense of mothering and grooming with this tree. And I couldn't help but to look forward to years of a deeper red. Supposedly the depth of the flower only ripens with age. As all living things do.
This year our fuchsia crepe myrtle bloomed by the road. I waited. I waited to see a deeper, more vibrant red in the yard with stories of the life it lived since we parted. I grew children in my belly. I birthed them. I had changed. I looked forward to listening to tales of our time spent apart with a broader experience in it's tone.
It never bloomed.
Was it because I left her?
Was it because I never told her that she hurt me?
Or because I hurt her with my neglect?
There were moments when things felt so right. It felt like we were sisters again. I never had a sister. She was my sister. She cried. I held her. I laughed. She smiled. I felt her. Her mouth moved when I touched her face in the hospital. It resembled a smile. The nurse told me it was just reflexes. Nerves. The skin on her face reacting to the skin on my fingertips. They were familiar. Sisters. Now gone. In a cemetery in Gastonia where she would have never moved back given the choice. A rectangle marked with a stone among thousands of other skins on faces. With winding roads and statues of saints and a pond where young children toss bread to ugly ducks. Where I used to drive around and get high. Where I used to drive around and look through my camera lens to get a new perspective on the world that I had grown up tossing bread to ugly ducks. She was buried in the ground and now there are ants crawling and building lives around her headstone. I couldn't do anything. She couldn't stop it or give warning. She fell in the hall. On the hardwood floor. The index and middle fingernail on her right hand were chipped. She still had the toenail polish on from my wedding. She didn't like wearing fingernail polish but did for my wedding. A light caramel bronze color. She picked up the flowers from the florist with me before my wedding and then her ex boyfriend ordered six dozen roses from that florist for her funeral. A dozen for every year they were together. He made sure that they went home with her Nani.
Was it because I wasn't the friend I should have been?
Was it because I took her for granted?
Was it because I didn't always answer her calls?
Was it because I never appreciated her?
Why didn't her tree bloom?
There is a crepe myrtle in my front yard. I bought it last year on May 20. One year after Lydia's death. A tree seems like such a befitting memorial for a loved one that you will never see again. I went to a local nursery to browse their crepe myrtles. See, Lydia always said that she and her Nani would line the driveway of the house where she would have a family with these beautiful trees. It seemed like the only proper tree to honor her with. I bought the smallest. And the most expensive. It is a Dynamite Crepe Myrtle. A tiny dwarf of a tree with the name "Dynamite." Lydia all the way.
I carefully and methodically loved this tree. I planted it while listening to Madonna. Pouring sweat in the heat. Eyes stinging. It felt right. I didn't know that I was pregnant. As instructed, I watered the tree every three days. "Let the roots search for water." That's what the tree-man said. I would count the days, pour the hose over my tree for at least five minutes. Drenching. Giving life. Providing an opportunity to grow and live and experience a lifetime spent in front of my house, watching my children play and offering beautiful gifts of dynamite red flowers. I would stand and compare the height of the small tree to my own five feet, eight inches. When I wasn't watering, I was examining budding blooms. Criticizing feasting insects. Taking joy in their death, watching them slow after a pesticide treatment, flicking their dry bodies with deep pleasure.
And then, she bloomed. A small spot of red in front of the yard where the hundred year old pine was uprooted and thrown by a tornado only a month before. I enjoyed her flowers. There was such a sense of mothering and grooming with this tree. And I couldn't help but to look forward to years of a deeper red. Supposedly the depth of the flower only ripens with age. As all living things do.
This year our fuchsia crepe myrtle bloomed by the road. I waited. I waited to see a deeper, more vibrant red in the yard with stories of the life it lived since we parted. I grew children in my belly. I birthed them. I had changed. I looked forward to listening to tales of our time spent apart with a broader experience in it's tone.
It never bloomed.
Was it because I left her?
Was it because I never told her that she hurt me?
Or because I hurt her with my neglect?
There were moments when things felt so right. It felt like we were sisters again. I never had a sister. She was my sister. She cried. I held her. I laughed. She smiled. I felt her. Her mouth moved when I touched her face in the hospital. It resembled a smile. The nurse told me it was just reflexes. Nerves. The skin on her face reacting to the skin on my fingertips. They were familiar. Sisters. Now gone. In a cemetery in Gastonia where she would have never moved back given the choice. A rectangle marked with a stone among thousands of other skins on faces. With winding roads and statues of saints and a pond where young children toss bread to ugly ducks. Where I used to drive around and get high. Where I used to drive around and look through my camera lens to get a new perspective on the world that I had grown up tossing bread to ugly ducks. She was buried in the ground and now there are ants crawling and building lives around her headstone. I couldn't do anything. She couldn't stop it or give warning. She fell in the hall. On the hardwood floor. The index and middle fingernail on her right hand were chipped. She still had the toenail polish on from my wedding. She didn't like wearing fingernail polish but did for my wedding. A light caramel bronze color. She picked up the flowers from the florist with me before my wedding and then her ex boyfriend ordered six dozen roses from that florist for her funeral. A dozen for every year they were together. He made sure that they went home with her Nani.
Was it because I wasn't the friend I should have been?
Was it because I took her for granted?
Was it because I didn't always answer her calls?
Was it because I never appreciated her?
Why didn't her tree bloom?
1 comments:
oh, love. this makes my heart sink. i'm so so sorry.
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