Jean

Time had seemed immaterial since Jean passed.

After having sorted through a room of her memories, records, and knickknacks I found myself in the garden. I don’t recall the steps I took to get there, nor moving at all, but I remember drinking in the scenery of the garden she had so carefully tended to over the decades. The pale light of dawn glowed purple through petals of the Clematis flowers while glints of reflected light shimmered off of the dew just below the receding fog.

I felt as though this was the first breath I had taken all day - as if everything had suddenly awakened inside and around me. A twinge of sadness and longing pierced my chest as I recalled this same scenery with Jean in it. ‘I must tend to this garden to preserve what is left of her.’ I thought, as I choked back tears.

With the watering can filled, I focused on counting to a minute as I watered each plant and the sound of the clattering pebbles with each step and shift I made. Weariness had set in after several trips to the water spigot, so I left the emptied watering can beside it then stepped inside for some tea.

Jean kept my favorite robin egg blue mug and Earl Grey tea on the top shelf and tucked near the back so that her invited company would never think to use them. I placed the brass tea kettle on the stove and decided to close my eyes as I waited for the whistle of the kettle. I imagined all the work and loneliness ahead of me away. Her cherished Turkish Angora cat, Honey, circled my legs. “Hello, little miss.” I whispered as Honey nudged against me to indicate that she needed to be held. The kettle whistled and I let out a titter at how typically inconvenient her demands were. “Sit tight, Miss.”

Having poured my tea and hoisted the golden-eyed cat into my arms, I decided to make my way back outside and sit on the garden bench for a spell. I placed my mug onto the side table and flumped onto the bench, much to Honey’s displeasure. A blur of scrambling fluff launched from my lap and let out a yowl of agitation before she settled down across the path with an air of elegance and disdain. The hilarity of the moment sent me into a fit of laughter. As I settled back down and absorbed my tears on my sleeve, I could see she had cleared a near perfect path in the disturbed pebbles.

I kneeled down to shift the pebbles back into place when a small and oddly pointed bit of wood caught my eye. Suspecting there was more to it, I worked my way deeper and grew the hole wider to accommodate the object. I let out a faltering sigh seeing the small wood box with Chrysanthemum inlay I had gifted her. ‘How like her to hide beauty within beauty. In this case, the garden.’ I mused.

To open the box took a considerable amount of effort, but once I had opened it I recognized Jean’s little black notebook immediately. I recalled many occasions where a spark flashed across her eyes and she’d dart down the hallway with a trail of yarn from her most recent crochet project trailing behind her. Jean would walk to her seat and scrawl out her thoughts ranging from poetry to inventions before settling back comfortably to her crochet.

I thumbed through the journal and fixated on her scribbling of a glass butterfly wind chime where the wings were designed to flutter. Her poetry and designs on the following pages were equally whimsical and peculiar though they waxed sadder and more practical beyond November 13th last year, after her diagnosis. . . I couldn’t help but become tearful at the palpable change.

Grief gripped me again and my body wavered at the thought of Jean contending with her mortality, something I still fail to grasp in the reality of her absence. Honey seemed to grieve with me as she nestled into my lap and her eyes filled with tears. “Deep breaths. Deep breaths.” I reminded us, “This will pass.”

I ran my thumb across all pages of her little black book once more to take in the scent of the ink and paper when a soft “thump” and flash of white landed squarely on Honey’s belly. I lifted the envelope with “to create” written in Jean’s hand across the front. Inside the envelope lay $20,000.00 wrapped inside a list of shops and supplies she needed to make many of her designs.

Jean would have done a much better job, but today I have completed the last of her designs with her savings and some of mine. I could feel her joy in the warm hues and vibrance of dusk. I feel peace in completing something that had once meant so much to her. Yet I wonder if she had intentionally set this aside for me to cope with the loss of her. I will drink tea in the garden tonight with Honey at my side and listen to the breeze play an ethereal tune on Jean’s wind chimes.