Amongst the Pines

The hummingbirds drank deeply from the dregs of the last summertime flowers. Deftly they pried between the sepal and the crepe-paper petals of the remnant hollyhocks and darted among the trumpet-shaped four o’clocks, pausing midflight to draw from their cups. Like a pin pricking a pin cushion, the hummingbird’s beak jabbed into the tight cluster of petals of the fall-blooming dahlias in search of their hidden sustenance. Occasionally these plucky birds vied with the yellow jackets for a perch at the feeder (the ornithological version of fast food dining), dipping, diving, dodging to avoid a sting. Having fuelled their tiny, powerful bodies, the hummingbirds left the farm for their long, migratory flight south.

“Ach. It’s been a year already”, Mom would say if she could reflect on her own death. The term “ach” was a signature expression of hers rooted in her first language of Pennsylvania Dutch. For me, it’s been a year of no requests to bring along a jug of maple syrup when I come down or to pick up blueberries the next time I’m at Costco. It’s been a year of no quiet visits, she sitting in her chair by the window colouring on her tablet, me knitting on the couch nearby. It’s been a year without her particular witness to the ordinary events of living my days. I had a sliver of a thought that this is all done now and we can get back to “normal” (meaning Mom joining us again). But no, that’s not how this works.

Has she too been on a long, migratory passage of some kind?

I’ve thought a lot about death this last year. One of the aspects that has intrigued me the most is the audacity of life. It goes on. It changes, but it does go on. Despite the tragic nature of any death, life seems to gather up the shards and eventually find a stepping stone. The acute missing flares less, and life offers up its own quiet balm. In the face of death, life audaciously presses on.

On a recent September morning, the rising sun cast warm light like a breath onto the gnarled, twisted trunk of the lilac bush, enriching the crooks and crannies of the ancient wood with a rosy bloom. As the sun continued to crest, the light shifted onto the leaves of the low hanging branches, endowing their drapery into finery. This pairing of the old, everyday lilac bush and the new day’s light brushed the scene with something extraordinary. The moment was brief, the light passing. Only I saw it, but it was something hallowed.

My thoughts turned to pregnancy. There is an incredulity and an incredibility when those first movements of the growing life within can be felt. Initially they can only be felt by the mother. But as the baby continues to grow, not only can the nudges be felt from the inside, they can also be felt against the palm of a hand laid on the outside of the distending belly of the mother. Sometimes these movements are rolling and gentle, other times they are boisterous and jolting. Eventually there may come a time as the pregnancy progresses where the movements can be observed without even laying on a hand. All those movements are signs of the life within and imminent birth.

I suppose we all have our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, our hopes of what may be beyond death. Death has been likened to a birthing of sorts – to what we really don’t know, anymore than that unborn infant knows what is beyond the womb. But as I watched the hush of light pause fleetingly on the lilac bush, I was curious if it could be a movement as it were from somewhere or something beyond pressing against the patina of this beautiful, old world inviting me towards wonder. Like a figurative soft bump into the palm of my hand, a bulge in the curved stretch of time, could that bit of bolstered brevity be offering me a glimpse of miracle? A gentle nudge towards stretching further my way of seeing? A quiet gesture of consideration, maybe even with some good-natured levity towards any held certainties?

Occasionally, Mom and I would chit-chat about this sort of thing. She would glint with amusement at some of my musings and we could share a chuckle about it or we would simply leave the thing lay when our perspectives didn’t align. I miss those conversations.

On the eve of the anniversary of her death, I cut some roses from my garden, put them in water in a canning jar and went to the cemetery to sit awhile by the granite slab that is inscribed with her name and Dad’s. The sun’s light filtered through the tall pines towards where I sat. A farmer drove his open station tractor hauling and spreading a load of manure onto the field that is snugged up to southwest side of the graveyard, the smell wafting my way. Despite being sandwiched between the rural traffic flying by on the sideroad and the farmer’s fall work in the fields, a peacefulness seemed to envelop the cemetery. I missed them both, and I was filled with a gratitude. Isn’t that the way of life? In the one hand this, in the other hand that. Both true.

The sun sank lower; the farmer paused his work around suppertime. I folded up my chair and drove on home.