We knew the season for sheltering fragile life wasn’t far away
No season signifies the passing of life more than the end of autumn with the certainty of winter to come.
Here in the Ohio Valley where I live, the overnight low temperatures have been well below 30 degrees this week. As the weatherman predicted last weekend, “The growing season is over.”
I remember how the advent of freezing weather last year led me to write a post that seemed to resonate with many readers. Now once again, I have brought a couple of plants indoors to survive the winter. Once again I’m resigned to seeing flowers outside transformed overnight into browning stalks, perfect for little else than chopping into mulch. Do we anticipate such loss when we giddily nurture seedlings each May?
It happens every year. So I’ve decided to update and repost that “winter’s coming” piece from last October. The consistency of the seasons helps me come to terms with the opportunities available to everyone who will embrace his necessary role in the shifting cycles of life.
On the evening last week when the weathermen were warning us about an overnight freeze, I was coping with the news I’d just heard from a caregiver friend.
He has cared for his wife persistently, heroically for six years. “I feel like I’ve been pushing a giant boulder up a steep hill all this time,” he told me. And he has shouldered the burden with grace and determination. But just a few days before, his wife had suffered a serious setback, and my friend had been told she should transition to hospice care.
Safety . . . protection
I went outside after dark to haul a few favorite container plants into a wheelbarrow for transport to the safety of the garage. And I couldn’t help thinking that I was doing for them what my friend would do for his wife: Preserving beauty, if not growth, for at least a little longer. Protecting from the loss that’s unavoidable in life’s inexorable cycle.
The hibiscus survived last winter and displayed yellow as well as salmon blooms this summer. We’ll see what next year brings!
Actually, my plan is to keep my double-flowered, salmon-colored hibiscus inside all winter. It may stop blooming. I’ll certainly stop fertilizing it; watering will be minimal; I may prune the branches.
But the roots will remain safe inside sustaining soil. It will have enough light to keep on living. It won’t flower, but neither will it die. I will be its caregiver, unwilling to let it go, hoping that all the beauty I remember in it will not be gone forever.
The very last bouquet of the summer, created from flowers picked a few hours before this week’s first killing freeze.
Such are the tasks of all caregivers. But we who care for patients with chronic, debilitating, incurable diseases are not looking for a future spring. We’re simply standing by with the hope of prolonging autumn, and a commitment to do our duty when the chill of winter can be delayed no longer.
And even though the vibrant beauty we remember from our loved one’s summer is fading, we may still see glimmers of the person we’re losing.
For me it’s an occasional radiant smile. An ingrained work ethic that prompts her to wipe countertops, straighten the bed, and always agree to help me fold the laundry. The determination to go to church on Sunday and the regular weekday Bible reading out loud while reclining on the couch. Singing along with YouTube hymn videos, songs of faith she’s known for 60 years. An occasional, wry comeback. Laughing at the newspaper cartoon (even when I’m not sure she really understands it). Noticing and smiling or giggling at every toddler or two-year-old we see in TV commercials or across the room at a restaurant.
Loss . . . hope
My overwintered plants may lose leaves or color; their branches may become spindly; they may only survive. But I will remember the glory I once saw in them, and I will tend them through the dark days of February and March until I can finally take them back outside into the warm sunlight of May.
Another October birthday, another celebration with a birthday pumpkin pie.
My beautiful wife is likewise becoming a shell of the person we knew. If we had no hope for a future, bright, eternal summertime for her, I’m not sure how I would cope.
Provision . . . life
Bringing outside plants indoors is only one way I’m preparing for winter. This weekend I traded a stack of summer polo shirts and shorts for a pile of sweats and hoodies from the storage bin in the basement. I can see winter coming, and I’m getting ready.
I’m not so eager to think about the grey days on the horizon for my wife and me. But I’m not denying that they’re coming. Instead, I’m making provision for every shred of health we can still enjoy. We will stay warm together inside this winter, experiencing life far too precious not to protect.
