Say it with Flowers

Say it with Flowers

Jennifer L McKeighan

It was a year of profound changes for me. I learned how to hold tight, let go, how to cry when no one was watching, and how to pray. That was a lot for a ten-year-old boy to learn.

My brother and I knew something was happening all around us. Adults stopped talking when we entered a room, and no one seemed to be able to look us in the eye.

My brother, Austin, is four years older than me. He was a nice brother, and he only rarely called me 'squirt' or 'midget' just because his friends were around. I respected him because I heard from other younger brothers just how humiliating this was to endure.

My name is Randall, though most of the kids I knew called me Randy (which I much preferred). But Austin called me Rando (short for random), and I liked it when he did. He never used it in front of others, for it was a private nickname just for me. As I said, he was a nice guy.

As that winter began to loosen its grip, we finally were told the bad news. Mom had stage four cancer. No one could tell us how much time we had left with her, just that the time was running out. It was the worst news possible to sons who loved their mother dearly.

At first, we boys were in a state of shock. No kid is ever ready to hear something like that. We were despairing, angry, and wanted to rebel against someone or something—but there was no way to do so.

"How could God let this happen to Mom?"

"Rando, God didn't do this. Mom's just very sick."

"Can't He cure her? Why doesn't He help her?"

"I don't know," Austin said, his voice barely a whisper.

Mom went through chemotherapy and lost most of her hair. Dad bought her a Red Sox cap. She loved the Sox, so she wore it with pride. We began chanting 'hey batter, new batter, new batter' at her. She usually smiled. The chemo was robbing her of some of her sunny disposition, so we tried anything to cheer her up.

Just before Memorial Day weekend, she took a turn for the worse. My Dad sat us down and explained that no one was sure how long she could continue this way.

"She's fighting so hard, boys, but the chemotherapy knocked a lot of fire out of her. She's not bouncing back from it as well as we hoped."

"Is she. . ." Austin started to ask a question he was afraid might be answered.

"We don't know. All we can do is love Mom while we have her here with us."

I don't know what Austin did then, but I went up to the attic and cried myself sick. I think, if I bawled much more, I might have vomited. And all that crying didn't do a thing to ease my pain. Or hers.

Later that afternoon, I went up to visit with Mom. She looked so tired, with sunken eyes and pale skin. I wished I could do something to help her.

"What have you boys been doing?" she asked.

I told her a few of our recent adventures, but I could see she wasn't truly listening. The pain was ripping her, and she couldn't hide it from me.

"I wish I could see the flowers out on the side yard," she told me.

"Could I go get the wheelchair? I can roll you down the hall to the guest room. You can see the daffodils and tulips from there!"

"No, I can't make it that far. I'm too sick today."

I told Austin, and we gathered in a huge vase of flowers of all sorts. When we presented them to her, she smiled.

She ran her finger along the blossom of a daffodil.

"This is what I miss most—the golden hues of the sun."

We stayed and visited a while until called to eat dinner. We felt a little better now, for we had brought Mom flowers and made her smile. We felt inspired to do more good things for her.

A week later, Austin let me in on his plan.

"I want to do something awesome for Mom," he told me. "I want your help, Rando, because it needs to be from both of us."

When he told me what he wanted to do, I was skeptical.

"We don't know anything about growing stuff," I said.

"I've been talking to Mr. Leone, down the street. He explained how to do it, and he is ordering the seeds for us. While we wait for those, we need to get the soil ready."

"How can it be a surprise, though?"

"We work on it after dark!"

"They'll see us. We'd need flashlights and all."

"We tell them we are out there looking for nightcrawlers to go fishing. We tell them we want to collect a whole bunch!"

"I don't know . . ." I replied.

"Why, because you'd have to give up watching some television at night? We're doing this for Mom. We gotta do something she would love."

So, I agreed. I wanted to do something for Mom but wasn't so sure about this plan.

We were out in the meadow for four nights at first. We used shovels to dig up the clumps of alfalfa growing there. We ripped them out by the roots as well as we possibly could, and it was hard work. When we finished each night's work, we wanted nothing but a warm bath and a soft bed.

"What are you boys doing out there?" Dad asked. We fed him the nightcrawler line, and he accepted it readily. He had so much on his mind these days that he probably was relieved we were doing something so wholesome.

Finally, we had a circle of rough earth, with bits of old grass and old roots sticking up here and there. Mr. Leone lent us a metal rake and told us to rake up and 'till' the soil with the rakes. That was hard work, too, but we got it done in two night's time. When we returned Mr. Leone's tools, he sat us down to give us some pink lemonade and the seeds.

"You need to mark out where you want to plant. Now, this part is easier, boys. You going to plant the seeds no more than half an inch deep. Then you leave it alone for a few weeks. Then you check on it and see it's sprouted."

"How long before it blooms?" Austin asked.

"Eight weeks from when you plant them, give or take a week."

"And they will be golden?" I asked.

"They will be bright yellow, with maybe a few orange ones mixed in. They will shine like the sun. Wait and see."

The next night we planted the seeds carefully and backed away from the big round flower bed. Now we waited. And we hoped. We even marked our calendars to remind us when the magic might occur.

In the meantime, Mom got slowly worse. The chemo didn't work as the doctors hoped. They scheduled an operation to get a better idea of what the chemo had done if anything.

Time dragged all that day as we awaited news that Mom was out of surgery. We had become fluent in medical terms no one our age should know, and we had a good idea of what was at stake.

Mom got through the surgery, and we breathed a familial sigh of relief. They would be keeping her there for a few more days, but soon she would be home with us again.

Dad asked our Aunt Ellie to come to spend the night with us. To this day, I do not know where he went that night, but I bet it was somewhere he could let go and cry. He didn't like to do so in front of us boys, and we hated to see it happen, too. It was all too easy to join him.

When Dad was back home once more, we snuck out to peek at our gardening attempt. We were pleased to see fresh green shoots sticking up through the grass.

"Should we pull that grass?" I asked.

"No, boys, not yet."

We turned to see Dad standing there.

"If you pull up the grass while the shoots are so young, you will end up yanking out your crop. Let the tender little things toughen up a bit first."

"How long have you known?" Austin asked him.

"Since the third morning I saw fresh dirt on my shovels."

"We should have asked first."

"Maybe, but let's not worry about that now."

We walked back up to the house with him. He grilled burgers, and the three of us shared a beer.

"You boys have pleased me," he told us. "But don't ever drink another one of these until you are legal, ok?"

We nodded and laughed.

"I didn't much like the taste of that stuff anyhow," Austin said.

In another two weeks, the marigolds were stalks with leaves. We looked for signs of budding, but there was nothing yet. In about four more weeks, we should see flowers—lots of flowers.

Our Mom got worse then. There was talk of other treatments, but she vetoed them all. She was going to go out of this world on her terms, however possible. We were to respect her decisions, and there would be no debates.

Hospice care nurses came to tend her around the clock. We all tried everything possible to make her more comfortable. The nurses taught us a few minor skills, such as heating socks, sweaters, and blankets in the dryer before putting them on her. The warmth helped her circulation and made her relax somewhat.

Our Dad read to Mom in the evenings from her books of poetry. When he read to her, her blood pressure evened out, and her pain level went down a bit. The nurses told him he was just the medicine Mom needed.

Too suddenly, Mom's condition worsened. She was so weak, and her breathing was shallow. There was talk of putting her on morphine, but Dad begged them to hold just a bit longer. He didn't want to cause her extra pain, but he was not ready to release her.

As Mom's condition gradually worsened, the nurses urged my Dad to reconsider the morphine.

"She's stage four and declining quickly. She should get some relief."

"Relief from everything," Dad sighed.

"Yes, relief from everything. When all there you feel is pain, relief is the only humane option."

Dad woke us from our sleep. We thought, from the look on his face, that Mom was already gone.

"It's time," he told us. "Time to say our goodbyes and let her go. I want us to spend the night with her, and the hospice nurses will start administering morphine tomorrow morning."

"But morphine--" Austin complained.

"It will ease her pain a bit, but it will also start the process of her body shutting down. We've run out of ways to help her, so we have to let her go where she won't hurt anymore. Do you understand?"

We were both quiet. We gave nodded. That was all we could manage just then.

We held her hands and spoke to her. We told her how much we loved her and shared our favorite memories of life with her. We told her what a great wife and mother she was and how much we would miss her. We even invited her to haunt us if she ended up becoming a ghost. We left no word unturned as we professed our love.

It was nearly dawn when Austin looked out the window and gasped. He pointed out to the meadow. Both Dad and I rushed over to look.

In that light, the circle of flowers did look like the sun had landed in our meadow.

It was then we heard a tiny gasp from behind us.

Mom's arms were outstretched, begging us to help her see, too.

"Marigolds, you all brought me marigolds!"

A smile lit up her face. For one brief moment, cancer no longer had a hold on her. She was alive.

We had a moment of wondering if a miracle was occurring. We were kids, and we didn't know you couldn't cure cancer by growing marigolds. We had to learn the hard way.

Years later, I was engaged to be married. My fiancee knew this story I just told you. When I told her our yard should include lots of marigolds, she told me she hated them, and we didn't need to plant any of those.

I broke that engagement before she took her next breath.

I am now married to a fantastic woman. She, too, knows the story and the importance of marigolds and what that flower will always mean to me.

Every spring, she helps me plant more and more of them.