Tending To

“What was the name of those things? Those bugs. The ones that used to light up.”

“Lightening bugs. They’re called Fireflies.”

“Oh. Why don’t they come out anymore? Or were they only back home in Illinois? Nah, cause I don’t see them when we go back to visit.”

“I don’t know.”

Mamma wasn’t one to speculate, so I knew that she didn’t know the answer.

“Where can we find some?”

“I don’t know baby.”

 

She walked to the side of the house and grabbed the bag of soil by one end, each hand gripping a corner. You could tell the bag held some weight as she dug down into her heels to use her leg strength. She drug the bag past the makeshift garden – four wooden planks barely stayed nailed together, each leaning their own way signifying their state of disrepair – and plopped the bag onto the concrete slab next to the cheap dollar store planters of various sizes.

 

“Why don’t you plant in the garden anymore mamma? It’s just sitting there?”

“Maybe I’ll plant some flowers in there this year. You want to help me?”

“Yeah,” I said. But that was not what I was asking, even though I knew the answer. I remembered the almost full-blown argument that erupted when mamma made Granny stop planting the garden. “I’d nevah thought I’d see the day when folks cain’t plant they own damn food into the ground.” Granny said.  Pissed off and defeated, she marched off to her room on the first floor of our house and slammed the door, signifying the beginning of her two-week grudge. Back then, the garden hadn’t been touched since, save for when the man that cuts the grass took his lawn trimmer to it and cut down the wayward weeds and bright green tufts.

 

“But why do you plant the vegetables in the buckets and not the garden?” I pressed. I still didn’t understand how the garden created that little rift between mamma and Granny and without realizing it, I feigned ignorance to find out.

 

Mamma took another huge scoop of soil from the bag and dumped it into the planter. She took a deep breath, tired from the work of outside but also preparing for the same conversation she had to have with her own Mother a few years back, not long before she died. She wiped her forehead with her forearm, careful not to get any dirt on her face. Her brown skin glowed from the inside out, which made the small streaks of sweat twinkle on her face.

 

“So, you know when the man that cuts the grass comes, and about once or twice a year you can’t come out here and play or walk on the lawn because he puts a chemical down that kills the weeds?” She paused. When I didn’t answer right away, she cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, revealing much more sweat along her jawline and neck.

“Yeah.”

“Well, those chemicals are toxic. And if we plant our vegetables in the ground, the chemicals will get into them. And when we eat the vegetables, the chemicals will get into our bodies. And eventually, or maybe right away, it will make us sick.” Still on her knees, she turned her whole body to face me. “Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” I said. “But why do you put it down if it’s not good?”

“To keep the lawn looking good. Looking fresh… I don’t know baby. Its one of those things that just doesn’t make sense.” She took another long, deep breath. This time, the fatigue seemed like it came from somewhere deeper, turning her breath into a long, deep sigh. She blinked a few times, took another breath, then used the shovel to create a hole in the middle of soil where she would drop the cucumber plants.

 

I stood there for a few minutes and watched her work. I thought about Granny, seeing her hands turning the soil over and over as she knelt next to the garden box wearing that tattered green hat with the white stripes.  Every year, year-round, Granny could be found following the planting seasons of North Carolina zone 7.

 

I felt that slow, dull, familiar pull in my left side. It emerged from nowhere and settled into my stomach, spreading up across my chest and settling into my shoulders.  I blinked a few times and swallowed it down. Blinking and swallowing, I slowed the breath that started to bubble up, and willed my wet eyes dry again. I looked at mamma. Her bottom lip was tucked under the top one, her watery eyes transfixed on the soil.

 

“Let’s plant the flowers Granny would have liked. The ones with pink, red and orange on the inside. I’ll come out here and water them myself every day.” It wasn’t the first time that I knew that I felt the same pain that my mamma felt at the same damn time and wanted desperately for it to go away. We felt it the day after she passed, sitting at the kitchen table. That time we let the tears fall, but it seemed like the right time. This time, it appeared out of nowhere and crippled us both in momentary sadness, and neither of us was prepared.

 

Grief.

 

They say it comes in waves.

 

“Sounds like a plan baby. And you better come out here every day. I’m going to watch you and make sure you do it and if you don’t…” The memory fades out, or maybe, the darkness just lifted. But I remember mamma continued fussing at me with relief and kindness, thankful that I pulled the veil of heaviness off us before we crashed under the wave. I think about her now, too. Tending to the container garden she was forced to create - feeding us without using the Earth. Tending to her stubborn, aging mamma until she died. And tending to the flower garden, planting those same pink-, red-, and orange-colored flowers every year.