The Butterfly in the Garden

It has only been thirteen months since my mom died. 

Last year, when I asked her what she wanted to make us think of her out in this world, she said that it is very personal/individual, but that she always liked butterflies and hummingbirds. This made sense in more ways than one: she and my dad had lived on Hummingbird Lane, so those were already special in some way since he died in 2017. Furthermore, for the year and a half that my mom lived here with my little family, we spent many hours in the garden watching butterflies flit through.

              The love of gardening flows through every molecule of my DNA. My parents raised my sisters and I tending rich gardens full of all manner of produce. Truth be told, I see the gardens of my childhood in my dreams to this day. My grandfathers did the same: both tending gardens as far back as I could remember. The final summer before my dad died was spent with him stopping by to walk the short distance around the little L-shaped garden in my backyard, dispensing tips, advice, and encouragement. I only had eight straw bales that year, I think, but it was “huge” for my little family and I. We only did four bales each the two previous years, and just a pot or two of tomatoes on the patio before that. I was *so* proud to be growing a variety of vegetables, fruits, and tomatoes and to send him home with lots of goodies for him and mom to share. That garden became symbolic of my personal connection with my dad.

              That’s why I threw myself wholeheartedly into the garden of 2018. I planted the seeds on his death date with my mom and daughters. They sprouted on the day we brought his ashes home. (He had gifted his entire anatomical donation to research/medical education, so his body was out in the world for another year past his death.) With my mom living with us, she and I spent *so* many hours together out on the patio and in the yard. Gardening, my connection primarily with my dad, was now deeply intertwined with my mom and with our individual yet shared grief journeys.

              My mom died last year in peak garden season. The day she died, I cried and cried out in the garden. The morning after, I died. I couldn’t fathom taking care of it the rest of the year. It was so big that I couldn’t tear it all down, even when the timing was appropriate. It took me (alone) around half a dozen tries to thin it out, and even more with my husband and daughter. I remember by the end; all I wanted to do was rip it down.

              When this spring showed up, I had no desire to return to gardening. I had spent the winter months receiving lovely comments from friends and family that they couldn’t wait to see my garden: my garden was always a source of interest and joy. I was so touched, very sincerely, by that. I tried to explain that my heart was not in it this year. At most, I could only talk about attempting a much smaller garden – if any. When the time came, I was so lost in grief and felt so dead inside. The grief journey following the loss of both parents has been rife with complicated decisions and other factors. In the end, it came down to wanting a BLT made with fresh tomatoes and, primarily, not wanting to let down the friends who were looking forward to seeing the next garden season. I’ve never planted a peer-pressure garden before, but even my closest friends seemed to feel that doing the garden anyway would honor my parents and make me feel better. I had one dear friend who I felt really ‘got it’ and I appreciated that *so* much.

              I decided I would get even fewer straw bales than I had been. Two years ago, I had twenty-five bales. Last year there were sixteen. This year, only ten. One of those ended up not joining the garden, thanks to a local pair of ducks and their abandoned egg. That’s another story for a different day. <3 I decided to focus as much as possible on flowers. I was desperate to get those butterflies and hummingbirds around so I could see my mom again – feel her here in my home and in my yard. (Disclaimer, I know they would not be “her”. That is not going to stop me from saying things this way. Get over it.)

              I planted flower bulbs, Chris and the girls bought me loads of lovely flowers for Mother’s Day, and we waited. I decided to buy plants from the farmer’s market rather than grow any, then changed my mind at the last minute and started a paltry few seeds in pods. I was terribly late in the season: late enough for it to almost not even matter. Even so, my precious Christopher dutifully set up the bales. He and Ninna worked together over the course of two weeks to condition the bales, then both did the bulk of the planting. Through it all, I felt depressed, stressed, heavy, and trapped in the “new grief” stage.

              Despite my lack of enthusiasm, my depression, despite my daughter hitting her new teenage phase and excusing herself from gardening, despite inconsistent watering, and an overall wish that I did not even have a garden – it grew. The garden grew, the flowers grew, the spring turned into summer, and everything began to produce. We got to share the fruits of our labor with just two precious friends this year and, in that sharing, I found some peace. It is a joy to give, but now it was also very comforting. <3 Best of all, they showed up: more bees than we have had in a very long time, two female hummingbirds, and butterflies: my, we’ve had so many lovely butterflies.

              They came in all sizes and colors, the butterflies. Every species that has ever graced my yard in the past fifteen years came by to flit around and sip from flower after flower. Each one warmed my soul and brought me peace.

    We hung a hummingbird feeder on the bedroom window, so I could watch for “her”. She showed up with increasing frequency, sometimes bringing a friend with her. She would show up with an empty stomach and eat until she was as fat as a plump grape. We hung a second feeder out in the garden in the archway. (Pictured above) Many times, they would come buzz right near my head to examine me before going off to eat. My hair was still cherry red, and it was important for the wee hummingbirds to assess whether or not I was a flower. lol

Google Image: Website cited below

     “She” came in the butterflies, and I would call out, “Hi, Mom!” every time one flitted near me.
But I assigned to her name to her very favorite: a female swallowtail that was such a deep black with lovely crystal blue accents on her skirt. I knew it was her because she flew into and around inside my lilac bush in front of my bedroom window. I have spent the past two or three weeks reveling in her appearance: delighting in her antics among the bush and the flowers. She made my heart lighter every time I saw her. In all this time, I forgot something very important: she will die. Rather, I knew she would die, but I forgot that it may be possible for me to witness the end of her life. She hung around so much that I should have realized this.

               This past weekend was the end of everything. I could not physically bring myself to put effort into the garden any longer. My mom was dead. My dog died. My duck died. We were in a drought and yet water is at a premium right now: we’ve had to use it sparingly. I can’t make up for a drought. I had done my duty: I grew the garden. I made the customary vegetable pizza and BLT (albeit a truly different kind of task this year, since my top teeth have all been removed). It was time. I was ready. The garden that I had thrown myself wholeheartedly into when dad died - and which had sustained me – only served to worsen my grief and deepen my depression after my mom died. I couldn’t take it anymore. And so, I told Chris we would be ripping it all out this past Saturday.

              We woke early that morning, choosing again not to bring anyone but our dog outside with us. The day would superheat again, so we needed to work early and fast. It felt sincerely good out there in the coolness of the morning. I found adrenaline that I’ve been lacking all year, so eager was I to take it all down. I brought my phone and played the Instrumental Hymns and Worship Radio station on Pandora for us to listen to. The music flowed gently, naturally – soothing my soul. My heart was lighter, my mood joyful when it began to play softly in piano solo: “Because He Lives”. In an instant, I was a child in my bed upstairs. Downstairs, the piano began to thrum. My mom. She did not play often, and she usually kept to the same few songs, but we would occasionally get that rare and unique chance to listen to her play her heart out on the piano. It was beautiful.

              I began to cry. No, I began to sob. Big, deep pangs of grief-stricken pain that had throttled me and affected my breathing were now being towed from my chest as one might haul heavy chains backward repeatedly, drawing them from the sea, as the beautiful song played over the radio ap on my phone. I lamented my regrets into Chris’s shirt as he held me: all yard work suddenly paused. This is how it is with grief, of course. One holds it in as best possible while it wells until some seemingly small thing overfills the glass and it all spills out. Like always, he held me as long as it took. I cried, I snotted, and then I pulled myself together not long after the song ended. Somehow or another, my grief did not ruin the morning. The garden was the right place for it, after all. Here where my dead parents simultaneously blessed and haunted my memory, it was fitting to remember her and them and us and all we had shared. This was where my grief belonged, and so I watered the garden a final time with my tears and then resumed the work of pulling it down.

We were nearly done when we saw her: this big, beautiful butterfly. I thought she might be the Black Swallowtail female. The Linda butterfly counterpart to my little Linda hummingbird. She floated gracefully across my neighbor’s yard and then ours, dipping and swirling into and out of tight loops and wider arcs. While she was still in Debra’s yard, I told her, “Come see me!” She immediately flew directly at and then over me. My mirth overflowed into laugher, Chris chuckling with me at her “obedience”.

              She danced around a bit and then landed in front of us. I pulled out my camera, eager for pictures and videos. Autum was imminent, after all. Butterflies don’t last forever. In the fresh morning sunlight, I realized that she was brown. This was a big, brown butterfly. It didn’t make sense. My eyesight isn’t what it was, and I asked aloud, “Who is she?” She took back to wing, swirled around the two yards again a bit, and came back to land on the final remaining tomato plant we had left at the back of the yard. I quickly snapped pictures, zooming in so I could see her.

              My heart broke in an instant. This *was*, indeed her. The beautiful, big, graceful Linda butterfly that had been delighting me in the yard every day. She was brown now, as the soft black velvet began to shed from her wings. Wings which, once so perfect and lovely, were now tattered and ratty along the edges. Crestfallen, I realized that awful truth: not that she would die, but that *watching* her die was a very real possibility. Images of my mom in her final hospital room intruded, sharpening the moment. Everything dies.

              We got back to work after she flew off, my mood somewhat dampened.  The Lord knows all things, of course, and He so often uses music in ministry to His children. One of my two favorite hymns came on: “In the Garden”. We laughed again, Chris and I. He did so much work, moving here and there and rearranging flowerpots as I turned my attention to deadheading. I did my best to nip off dying leaves, but end-of-season flowerpots always look a bit sparse and tired. He arranged them around our little Coco’s resting place. She deserves flowers, bless her little heart. I trimmed the rose bush back, as well, freeing up the little fence that surrounded my lilac to be used elsewhere. Chris positioned the doghouse to one side of it, and I a little board to the other. Once we had finished as much busy work as we could, we decided that it was officially “too hot” and now time to go inside.

That afternoon it rained.

And I mean it really rained. Thunder made an appearance first, growling here and there like a child with a tantrum. I couldn’t believe my ears. We hadn’t had rain in only too long. Plus, the sky was still bright.  Skeptical, I kept my eyes on the windows. Within an hour or so, thunder turned to rain. Doesn’t that beat all? lol Here we here in a drought and the bales of the garden could accurately be described as dry and crispy for lack of attention and water. We pull the garden down and *now* it rains? I had to laugh.

              Today is Monday. It sprinkled a drop or two on Sunday, and today it literally rained all day long. All day! It hit me at some point that I couldn’t be upset even if I wanted to (I did not) because in my gardening-resistant grief process this year, I had hit the point where I had quit praying for rain: truly, I hadn’t even thought to do that in quite a while. Now I really had to laugh! lol

              I understand that I have written a novel by now: five pages on Word. I did not mean to do that. My intention was to write a single page on which I could neatly fit pictures of what the black swallowtail should have looked like (from Google, since I had not caught her on my camera before this – choosing to simply enjoy her presence) and how she looked at the end of her life in the end of this painful gardening season. I feel like there are parallels to the process of losing my mom last year and then losing her all over again this year when I couldn’t even muster up the joy we shared in the garden: only the grief we had shared there.

Oddly enough, I do not intend to sound so morose in this post. I know people don’t like it when we openly share just how hurt we really are.  There is still this expectation that Christians should be finding the silver lining at every moment of every day. I’m not trying to sound like a sad sack. Rather, I’m being open about my grief process precisely because it *is* so lonely. Everyone who loves you wants you not to hurt anymore, and so the pain can be somewhat isolating. As with the good, there are moments – heavy moments. Here in my blog, I am giving space to those.

And, while it sounds sad to have seen the butterfly in her dying state, it in some way neatly pins shut the entire season. While I am not yet to the point with my mom (or dad) where I can simply be glad I had them and not feel their losses so utterly deeply, I *can* choose - and am choosing - to be grateful that I had the butterfly to delight me while she was alive this season.  Somehow or another, that gives me hope.

Black Swallowtail Butterfly link from the Google image result shared above.