Just 5 days before my mother passed away — the very day she was told she was almost out of time — a plant arrived. A lovely chrysanthemum that was about to bloom.
It was flat-out covered with buds… and when Adorable Child brought the plant downstairs to my mother, we all sat out on her brick patio for a couple of hours, trying to guess how many flowers there would be.
We settled on “hundreds”.
The card read, “Wishing you a few pleasant days” — a thought that turned out to be astoundingly appropriate.
Yet she did, in fact, have a few pleasant days left. And while the day those flowers arrived was a tough one, it was also a day we three spent together with some enjoyment.
Pleasant. Sometimes, that’s all one can ask for.
It’s taken me several days to be able to express myself in the way I wanted… but making these images with the empty wheelchair helped me enormously.
Time can sometimes be an enemy. There’s often not nearly enough, and as it passes, so too do our days.
But time can also be a friend — a gentler of difficult emotions. And so it has proven for me — because although I’ve desperately needed to express my grief through my camera, it wasn’t until yesterday that I was able to do so… or at least to begin.
