We are going to Lime Springs, Iowa on Friday to bury my grandmother, Hope Souhrada. She died last December, don't ask any questions. It was a long winter in Iowa. So once again, six households are coming together to celebrate her life, and place her at last next to my grandfather John. In the warm sunshine.
Perhaps my grief for her was overshadowed by the grief I am still working through for my father. Or perhaps her grief was just a bit more spread out. Sometimes I think there is a net sum of grief equal to the place the person held in our life and you can go through it fast or slow or now or later but sooner or later you go through it. The grief of losing my grandma, or Mama as I called her started the frozen January 2010 day that we drove her down the lane of the little farm on highway 63 a mile North of Davis Corners to the (holding back on derogatory expletives) nursing home in Cresco. Numbly we held a little service of blessing over the house which held the memories of 40 years for me and longer for her. We all shared a story or two. Four generations had wonderful memories there. If you can grieve a place we are still working through that as well. What a blessing that my children shared the playhouse that my grandpa made from the brooder shed--painting, roofing, and putting in new windows--when I was a child.
It took four households six months to work through the stuff in the house and out buildings. Every time I drove there to help I grieved her, though she was still alive, but not living, in the nursing home. The short hour long visits there not equal to the late night talks about life and faith and the children.
This spring all the starts I took from her garden were more beautiful than ever. Hundreds of ferns. She warned me about the ferns. She said, "they will take over, you will be rounding them up." Never. She made me take the transplants from around the Lily of the Valley. The ferns were noxious there and she worried they would drive out her favorite flowers. Invasive she said. Having a fern fetish I was glad for the little fronds. For the last ten years, since we built our house, I have taken ferns each spring from the North side of her house. And peonies. And roses. And volunteer pines trees. Last spring I worried that I would be taking too much from the prospective new owners of the property. I made sure that I didn't take too many ferns. Turns out the new family is adding on to the house and the fern bed was destroyed. I should have taken them all.
That is not to say that I am not delighted that a family with four small children moved into the farmhouse. They needed more space and will make it their own and love it. Their children will play in the brooder house--maybe their dad will put new windows in and paint and shingle it. They are Mennonite, they will take care of the land. I met them. They happened to be visiting Hope in the nursing home once when I was there. If there is such a thing as God moments, Calvin and Mary meeting the four sweet children that would take over the brooder house was one of them. For me too. Maybe especially for me.
Back to the Lily of the Valley. So as we grieve Hope, who died at 91, there is some small cosmic laughter. This spring little shoots of Lily of the Valley that piggybacked on my fern transplants are taking a hold in my garden. Everywhere. Invasive Lily of the Valley. Mama is smiling down at me from heaven. Her flowers are resurrected in my garden.
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