There are living stories in my yard, putting out leaves in the spring, blooming in the summer, going dormant in the fall. Stories of endurance. Of perseverance. Of stopping to delight in the unexpected. Of using one’s ingenuity to purchase beauty on a nonexistent budget. Of having the tenacity to bloom on, no matter what challenges life throws your way.
These are the stories, and the passalong plants that carry them:
A tall blue iris from my Great-Aunt Lucille. Great-Aunt Lucille (Grandma Vance’s sister) was a woman with a dignified, calm stance who always wore elegant dresses. She had a career job in a bank (very rare for women a hundred years ago). Great-Aunt Lucille lost a baby boy at age four to double pneumonia and an infant boy to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). When those blue irises bloom, I think of Great-Aunt Lucille. She lived on, after those losses; raised a daughter; gardened, lived, loved, and died at an honorable and fulfilled old age, with grandchildren and a daughter to mourn her.
A bright yellow iris from my sister Mary Tennant Talbott. Mary was visiting an acquaintance when she stopped short and exclaimed, “What a stunning iris! I have to have a piece.” Then Mary joyfully passed the yellow iris on to me and many others. I love the way Mary celebrates unexpected beauty wherever she finds it, the way she stops and takes advantage of life’s joyous unscripted moments.
A pale-pink peony from my grandmother Ruth Carpenter Vance. Grandma was bowlegged and a dynamo of energy, but had the most beautiful, tender smile. She lived on a small farm in Northern Michigan, and was, in the judgment of the world, impoverished. Yet Grandma believed poverty was no excuse for not living a fulfilled, beautiful life. So she wrote to the state agricultural college, and students in a landscape design class created a landscape plan for my grandparents, free of charge. Grandma followed the plan and ended up with a beautifully landscaped yard. That richly-flowered peony is a link to my grandmother, to the way she taught her children to stand tall, to believe that they were as good as anybody else, and to her insistence that beauty was available to everyone, no matter the size of their pocket book.
Brightly-colored columbines from my friend Mary Y. Columbines have the frailest of orchid-like blooms and look like a good stiff breeze would knock them over. But they are among the hardiest of plants, and thrive in the most unlikely places. One columbine comes up every year from under the cement stoop in my side yard. Over the years columbine seeds have ridden the wind and have self-sown all over my yard; they are full of beauty, tenacity and grit, like my friend.
And, finally, a royal-purple iris from my mother, Jane Ellen Vance Tennant. This lovely iris, shorter than others, blooms early in the spring. It is unassuming, beautiful, sturdy… just like my mother. Some years it has bloomed a second time in September, which is a rarety for an iris. When I think of that September bloom, I think of my mother, living on decades after the death of her husband. I think of how when she moved into a retirement community late in life, she successfully took on a new mission for herself: being an encourager of everyone around her.
I am grateful to have known these women, and for the passalong plants they gave me. These living stories remind me that it is not the grand events of our lives that define us. It is the small everyday choices we make. To endure grief and live again. To live life with zest. To savor beauty. To share what we have with others. To make the most of what we have been given.
These are the choices that matter in the end.