Some days are just auspicious
April 2nd is mine
My mother was born on this day in 1920, in Elgin. Doris. My father died on this day. Robert, from Lancaster. And three years ago today, we planted an oak tree for my husband, Larry, who died in October 2019, aged 65.
The universe has a dark sense of humour about anniversaries.
It feels right to start this today.
This morning I went out into the garden with my scissors like some kind of floral bandit, eyeing up what to steal.
The camellia was showing off. Practically screaming, look at me! in that shocking, unapologetic pink. Larry’s favourite. It has no chill, that plant. Just throws itself into bloom like it’s trying to prove something.
The grape hyacinths were standing to attention in their little purple battalions. Ridiculous, really, all that effort for something so tiny. But they push through cold and rain and absolutely will not be ignored. Sweet and funny and determined. Like my mum.
And the daffodils. God, the daffodils. Golden and silly and completely full of themselves. Dad would have loved them. He was such a gent, my father. Loved Wordsworth. Probably wandered lonely as a cloud at some point, though knowing him it would have been a very polite, well-mannered sort of wandering.
I have this ritual now. Each flower chooses where it goes.
Today. Blue hyacinths for Mum. Yellow daffodils for Dad. The outrageous camellia for Larry, placed next to his photo on his side of the bed. I always say the same thing: “Here are some flowers from the garden for you, my love.”
Sometimes I feel like a mad woman, talking to photographs and arranging flowers for ghosts.
But then I think, well, what else should I be doing? Going to the gym? Or missing the fact that every day there’s a new flower popping up to say hello?
For someone who never thought of herself as sentimental, I seem to have become a person who conducts small ceremonies with vases.
It’s the tiny things now. The completely ordinary miracles that I somehow never noticed when I was busy being efficient and getting on with things.
How does a grape hyacinth even exist? How does something that small and blue and determined push its way through frozen ground just to stand there being purple at the world?
And why do I cry about it?
(I do cry about it. Not sad crying. Something else. Wonder crying, maybe)
Here’s what I keep telling myself: You are here to have fun.
I have chosen to celebrate my wins. Not what I didn’t do but what I did do. To take pleasure in the smallest things from washing the floor to eating tomatoes swimming in olive oil and garlic. Not beating myself up for anything big or small.
So, if the gym wants me, it knows where I live.
Today, all three of them are here.
My sweet, funny mum and my lovely dad. The shocking pink camellia for Larry, who would have laughed at all of this and told me I was being dramatic.
He’d be right.
But I’m doing it anyway.
I don’t know what will happen.
But I know it starts here.
On this day. With these flowers. With a deep breath.
With this stubborn belief that life is not only worth showing up for but is also full of infinite possibilities.
Even when, especially when it breaks your heart
Love always
— Janie x