Grief knows no season.
And yet autumn has a way of claiming it.
My father died in the spring, my mother on the verge of summer and my sister on one of winter’s coldest days. And yet it is now, on the crisp, bright days of fall, that sorrow comes to roost, gathering like fallen leaves around my heart and around the memory garden designed to replace death with life.
I stand at the edge of the kidney-shaped bed and remember the good times, the hard times, the laughter, the jokes, the shapes of their faces and the cadence of their laughter.
And, I remember the day bad news came for each of them.
I recall my mother’s anguish, my sister’s suffering, my father’s surrender.
It is comforting and yet cruel that Mother Nature’s beauty continues amid so much human sadness, that the oak’s golden yellows and the mum’s deep purples simultaneously evoke feelings of joy and heartbreak. So here, and so gone.
At the time each loved one died, I found myself distantly and perhaps disturbingly calm. In each case, I knew their end was coming. The news that they were terminal first brought to me panic and then a strange calm as I summoned a means of staying steady so that I might endure and so they might die in peace.
And after each burial, I stood strong through the services, the speeches, the business of death, all the while bracing for grief’s impact. Surely, I would awaken one day destroyed, inconsolable, out of my mind, unable to function.
But that didn’t happen.
Instead, grief simply attached its malaise to my being, weighing me down and accompanying me everywhere.
At the supermarket, on the computer screen, inside the pantry. Memories assaulting me, distracting me, riddling me with aches and despondency.
Grief needed to be here, but it also needed a place of its own.
Grief is not a hurricane that blows in, ripping everything apart and then dissipating into a soft rain. It is a new climate, a new weather pattern, a new way of living, one that forever alters your lifestyle, your dreams, your resolve and your ability to see the forest without seeing the trees that aren’t there anymore.
In the spring of 2023, my husband and I went shopping for a tree to add to the east side of our lot. I wanted a red maple because I wanted something that would burst with beauty in the fall.
We went to a local garden center and picked out a sapling. We were told it would be installed in the coming weeks, depending on the weather.
On May 10 of that year, the landscaper called.
“Today’s the day,” he boomed. “We’re bringing out your tree.”
I explained that I wasn’t home, that I was at the hospital and that my father was dying.
The man asked if I wanted them to continue with the planting. I said, “Why not? The spot is marked.”
And then he said, “This can be a memory tree for your dad.”
My father died hours later.
And there was so much to do. His funeral, his estate, his stuff, not to mention trying to reconcile the cruelty he had been subjected to in his final months. I didn’t have time for grief. I only had time for anger and tasks.
A few months later, just as the new tree was beginning to show off its orange and red hues, my sister got the news she had months to live.
Again, I shifted into high gear, making several trips to her home near St. Louis, helping her prepare and comforting her through her final days.
A week after she passed, I looked out the back window and saw the little tree, holding its own against the January snows. It looked so lonely, so vulnerable and, yet, so determined and mighty — much the way my dad looked on the day he died.
Tears came. But so did a plan.
More than a knock-out punch, grief is the embrace that comes afterward. It is compassion in other people’s eyes, the warmth of their hugs, the solace of their sympathy. It is knowing everything goes on, despite everything that is gone.
I needed to make room for grief in my life. It needed a space. I decided to install a memory garden. I went back to the same landscaper who had installed the tree.
I decided I would plant something beautiful and majestic in honor of my sister. I would plant a magnolia tree.
Within days, a card arrived notifying me that at the end of April a magnolia tree would be delivered to my home, courtesy of some of my longest friends.
I sobbed. That they would know my intentions without me saying a word. This, too, was grief. Empathy, soft and necessary, a reminder that as much as you feel alone, you never truly are.
In July, the garden went in. It features an elegant pink magnolia, in memory of my gracious sister, and showy white hydrangeas, a nod to my quietly beautiful mother. There also are stones and statues and wind chimes gifted to me by other friends.
Overlooking the bed at the northern end is a sturdy, quiet maple that not only blends with the Midwest scenery but takes a backseat to the more extravagant members of this garden family.
Kind of like my dad did for all of us.
The garden is a place to reflect, a place to care for and be cared for, a place where butterflies and bees and birds and humans come for respite.
It is a place that goes on, despite all that is gone.
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at donnavickroy4@gmail.com.
