I Used To Have a Garden

As I entered to parking lot to the nursing home my heartstrings tugged. Why did I always feel guilty coming here? I had done everything in my power to keep mammy at home, but when she refused the stair lift and fell down the stairs, breaking her already artificial hip, what could I do? There was no other option. The hip was just the straw that broke the camels back. She had started to wander off on her own before that, making living at home a danger to herself and us siblings who were looking after her. Yes, there are a lot of us but we all have families and jobs. I did notice however, that a part of her vanished on every visit.

I sat in the car and let myself cry before I entered the facility. I was cautiously optimistic about her mental state, secretly hoping she remembered who I was. She was 93 years old and was declining fast…dementia was taking over.

I eventually pulled myself together and plucked up the courage to get out of the car, something I couldn’t do yesterday. I took the bunch of flowers off the passenger seat and made my way into the facility.

The first thing I did was approach the nurses station to get a sneak preview as to what I was about to face. They told me that she was relatively ok today…I didn’t like the word relatively.

Tentatively I made my way down to room 203, my mothers room. I knocked on the door so as not to startle her. To my delight, she was sitting in her wheelchair looking out into the garden.

‘Heya mammy!’ I said and kissed her on the cheek. She beamed up at me, ‘heya love!’ I handed her the bunch of flowers which she smelled and thought to be lovely. I took the old, dead ones out of the vase and arranged them for her. I thought they might brighten up her plain room.

I pulled the black leather tub chair beside her and sat down looking out at the garden. My mother smiled and a blank stare came upon her face.

‘I once had a garden,’ she said, ‘it was my serene place, the only place I had for me that wasn’t to do with you kids. I used to crawl on my hands and knees to try to eliminate the weeds from between the patio slabs. I pulled them up every spring and treated their source. I used to curse the first time I ended up mowing the full green lustrous lawn every spring as it reminded me of the fields near where I grew up in the countryside.’

I looked at her with a smile on my face. It was nice hearing her talk about her past. ‘Did you have your lunch mammy?’ I asked.  

‘I once had a garden,’ she began again, ‘I planted every single colourful flour in the copious amount of pots that lined the pathway to the shed. The fuchsia bush engulfed me on several occasions as I attacked it with the shears.’ She laughed, ‘oh I don’t miss that fuchsia bush! I tried to dig it up several times but the bloody thing kept growing back.’

I always knew she liked to keep the garden nice and tidy. I remembered the time two of us had to haul her out of the fuchsia’s grasp.

‘I once had a garden,’ she said again, ‘it was a place of fun and games. I would host soiree’s there every Sunday for my gal pals in the summer. They would admire my perfectly manicured lawn and oohhh and aaahh at the colours of the flours.’

‘I remember those soiree’s mammy!’

‘You do?’

‘Yes of course, it was me who you sent on a wine run every time you ran out.’ We giggled.

‘Do you remember the time your auntie Rita got so drunk we had to send for your uncle Noel?’

‘No, I don’t remember that one,’ I was glad she was opening up to me.

‘Yea,’ she continued, ‘she had such a hangover that she couldn’t pick the car up for two days!’ we laughed. It was those moments that I came to visit her for.

‘Look at my garden now!’ she gesticulated towards the single tree in a square pocket of the nursing home, gravel covering the earth. ‘It is nothing in comparison to my garden of late!’ she bowed her head and sighed. I put my hand on her arm.

‘Did I tell you I used to have a garden?’ I just smiled at her, saddened things had to be like this.

‘You did mammy,’ a tear rolled down my cheek, ‘you did.’