The Return of Breath

I'm glad I know signs of life when I see them. Were that not the case, my grand gardenia bush would be a pile of clippings by the side of the road awaiting Monday morning trash pickup. It was this gardenia bush that, during my house-shopping saga in the spring of 2011, met me at the side of the front porch steps and said, "Welcome home!" It was a remarkable sight, this gardenia, for north Alabama, standing nearly as tall as I, and as rotund as a Mini Cooper. And, it wasn't just all talk because over the summer it produced dozens and dozens of fragrant flowers.

My mother had grown up in Jasper, Alabama and had enjoyed the somewhat common nature of a gardenia bush there. But when she was transplanted to East Tennessee, way up near Bristol and Johnson City, she'd crossed the line of temperate climate that gardenias need. That didn't stop her longing, or her trying, to return gardenias to her personal landscape, though. How well I remember the many attempts at planting and sustaining a gardenia bush in our front yard, our back yard, or down on the farm. Each little bush had come in a pot and was garnished with blossoms. It seemed possible. But, sadly each gardenia bush that was planted succumbed to the early falls and long, cold winters. Finally, it was a tabletop gardenia every spring that was her consolation.

So, when I encountered this grand show of a gardenia bush, something within me was stirred. And, that welcoming gardenia represented the new life that swept into my grieving daughter when she followed me in through the front door for the first time, breathed her first full, deep breath of 3 years, and said softly, "this feels like home."

The winter of 2014 in Huntsville AL was hard for all living creatures, the Arctic Blast phenomenon that just wouldn't stop, and this, the following spring, I noticed my gardenia bush ... well ... it looked like I might have to accept some pretty hard facts. The leaves from the past summer lay dead and dry around its base, the skinny little twig branches were barren when other signs of spring were bursting forth all around it. It was as though the gardenia bush stood alone, suddenly no longer aware of the coming of spring and the chance for new growth and life.

Still, I hoped. I hoped against hope. I bent over the bush, looking closely for new growth, snapping off tips of tiny arms that once bore the blossoms. Weeks passed, and I went one morning to prune the dead from the bush fully aware and brokenhearted that the pruning might go to the roots. Still yet I found the gardenia's twigs would snap off like the brittleness in my heart over losing this grand gardenia, until ... one twig bent under pressure, it gave way with some softness. Then another, and another. So, I took my clippers and backed off, giving a bit more time of watching for any signs of life within.

Weeks later, a day of rejoicing came when close inspection of the bush revealed the tiniest of green growth, barely even perceptible, marching up the branches! There is life! There shall be blossoms! This experience reminds me of the care that must be taken with all that has life. Nurture life during tough winters, prune away the brittleness, wait patiently for return of breath.