Violets for the Soul

My garden never fails me. And this weekend, when I was struggling to reconcile personal sorrow with the celebrations planned in the days ahead, it came through once again with just the lesson I needed.

The news of a friend’s death had hit hard. This smart, funny, vibrant person was suddenly gone. A degree of consolation came in the knowledge that she’s free of the insidious disease that so quickly took her beautiful, purposeful, faith-driven life. Surely, I told myself, she’s already entertaining fellow souls in heaven with that megawatt smile and lilting Southern drawl. May she rest in peace.

Already grieving the loss of two friends this month, both to Alzheimer’s disease, I empathized with three surviving families who now must face their first Thanksgiving without their loved one. I remembered the pain of that first Thanksgiving without my mother, the family matriarch and organizer of decades of perfectly prepared and artfully presented feasts. There’s no way to sugar-coat such profound loss, especially when the radio tells us it’s the hap-hap-happiest time of the year.

And then my eyes rested on a basket of rain lily bulbs, neglected and forgotten in a corner of the garden. Miraculously, a bud was reaching toward the sun, ready to open wide at any minute, with a couple more close behind.

They’d been patiently waiting to be planted since I’d dug them up weeks ago while redesigning a flower bed that had suffered the effects of Hurricane Beryl. As I dug into the soil to make room for a few foxtail ferns, my trowel made contact with dozens of the pear-shaped gems sleeping deep beneath the surface.

My discovery was all the more special given their history: Decades ago, my mother had shared a handful so that I might enjoy the lilies in my fledgling garden. Originally from her grandmother, Selma Anna Boehle Hoefle, they have become cherished family heirlooms, multiplying profusely to bring immeasurable joy. Over the years, I’ve dug them up with each move and shared them – and their story – with family and fellow gardeners along the way.

Thrilled as I was to find such buried treasure, I was busy with my new plantings, so I hastily threw the bulbs into a coir-lined metal basket and promised to tend to them soon. But life got in the way, and then the timing wasn’t right as I found excuse after excuse – too hot, too wet, too … whatever – to give them a proper home.

Still, these little pre-engineered packages were waiting to fulfill their destiny as strappy, dark green foliage with shoots of rosy pink blooms that arise like clockwork each time it rains. Despite my procrastination and the lack of soil, fertilizer or any manner of TLC, they were doing just that, quietly carrying on just as they have been for a hundred-plus years. By Sunday morning, the tallest bud had unfurled in all its glory.

Once again, Mother Nature nailed it for me in a moment of joy that was spontaneous yet precisely timed and choreographed. She provided a metaphor reminding me that even when the rains fall, we can strive to fulfill our own purpose in life and find joy somewhere deep inside. And we can find ways to honor those whose light shines forever in our memory.

One of my favorite scriptures, read at Mother’s funeral in 1990 and at our wedding in 2003, is Psalm 118:24: “Today is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

As we share food and fellowship this Thursday, I’ll know that the friends and family members who have gone before us are there in spirit. And for that, I shall rejoice and be glad, and exceedingly grateful.