January 19, 2004
The Camellia
I saw it out of the corner of my eye when I went out to tell the yard guy that he'd missed a spot with his leaf blower. I don't know exactly why my regular lawn crew was out blowing my leaves on a cold winter day, but they were, and I was particularly concerned about a patch of fallen leaves that lay on a tract of ground where my Carissa hollies were. I yelled at him over the cacophony of his gas-powered leaf blower and he heard me and turned it off. Since I don't speak Spanish and he doesn't speak English I had to motion to him as to where the spot was that he missed. And that's when I saw it, just as I turned to lead him to the unblown spot. It was pinkish red, a single bloom on a camellia bush that we'd put in that spot maybe two years back. Never before had it bloomed. But here it was, a particularly large and healthy bloom on the coldest day of our unusually mild winter.
But then I forgot about it. Until just now, this evening. As I was reading some old blogs about Susan I recalled how I no longer had rose buds to cut and place next to her photo. But just in time here was the camellia doing its thing in winter. In better times when we were both healthy and living in West Plano, our house at the time had a small patio on the north side with a camellia bush that bloomed, like this one, in winter. It was a nice touch contrasting with the otherwise brownishness of the season. And so in the pitch dark I staggered around the back yard groping for the bush until I finally found it and duly cut off the bloom, carried back to the house, placed it in an impressive sort of bowl, and placed it by Susan's photo: a new one that I just came across with a wide smile on her lips. (How I loved her smile!)
Do camellia blooms, and rosebuds, and rainbows on her birthday mean anything? The scientist in me shouts: "no, they are all coincidence. Forget about them. Don't be sentimental!" But the grieving widower in me looks for any sign that she is still alive, still somehow communicating with me. On my desk I have her photo. It's the striking one taken from the original one where she is standing with arms folded. Except I cropped this copy with just her face filling the whole frame. Those eyes! She seems so alive in that photo. As I stare at it I become almost hypnotized, and even wait for her to speak.
But the photo is silent, just like my life in this lonely house.
But I have resolved with the new year to "gird up my loins" like she would want me to. No more moping around feeling sorry for myself. No more weeping at old photos of her beaming face from her hospital face, so full of love even in the midst of her suffering and weakness. She goes on, in a life that is unimaginable in its glory. And mine does too. Even in the winter of my life a camellia can still bloom. It testifies to the glory and surprises of its Designer and Creator. I can only hope to do the same.
Posted by John Dishman at January 19, 2004 08:25 PM