Flowers in Her Memory, My Struggle

“If a rainbow makes a sound, or a flower as it grows, that was the sound of her laughter” (The Shack, p. 154).

I have to say... I'm a bit down today.

I'm having a day of the motherly guilt that only a mother of a deceased baby can have...

The day didn't start out this way.

The day started out full of promises of a good day. An open schedule, blue skies, sunshine. The perfect day for me to begin planning where to plant all the flower bulbs I ordered from our Hailey's Hope fundraiser, which I received in the mail yesterday.

Envisioning where I'd plant the dahlias and peony and what they'd look like at full bloom later this summer was delightful. (Have I mentioned that I am a girl who loves flowers?).

I found special excitement in dreaming up the perfect location for the "Butterfly Flower Mixture" I ordered, which was done so specifically in memory of Hailey.

(One of the reasons I chose to do a flower fundraiser was because I loved the idea of something beautiful blooming in remembrance of her, in having something I'd randomly look at or walk by and immediately think of her, and for all the same reasons bereaved parents create memorial gardens for their deceased children. Not only was I looking forward to having beautiful flowers to look at and think of  my daughter, and maybe even have a way to share her with others, but I was looking forward to having them attract beautiful butterflies, which also remind me of her.)

Then I began to think of how lovely it would be to do my own memorial garden for Hailey in our backyard. That's when things turned downward...

Even though this is the first time we own our home and have our own backyard to do whatever we want with... I can't shake the temporariness of our home. The memorial garden that I would dream of and work long and hard on would only last us as long as our current duty station. In a few years when we have to move, I'd have to leave it... How would I feel leaving Hailey's memorial garden to a stranger who wouldn't understand it and would most likely tear it up? How could I leave another reminder of her?

I would love to have a memorial garden for her that I could plant these flower bulbs in and add beautiful garden decorations of butterflies and stones and what not.... but I want it to be permanent... I don't want it to be temporary. I don't want to have to re-create one in each place we move.

As I was thinking of all this, I also happened to be doing my weekly/ monthly updates of the blogs I started following when we lost Hailey. This made me think of something else that made my downward path complete.

I came across one whose most recent post was about the Cherry Blossom tree they had planted in memory of their daughter whom they lost 3 years ago. They planted the tree soon after she passed away. When they look at the tree, it's 3 years old, as old as their daughter would have been. They have something to forever look at that marks the beginning of their daughter's life and simultaneously their life without her.

I had attempted doing something similar in my own way last summer. Knowing we'd be moving every few years because of the Army, I thought of keeping a potted flowering plant in memory of Hailey. I bought an Azalea, which I wrote about in my post "Pink Azaleas for Hailey." It was beautiful.



The tricky part was choosing to keep it potted instead of planting it and combining that with my lack of a green thumb. Could I keep it alive? Well I did. I was pleasantly surprised that it was making the move with us to Tennessee at the end of January. It didn't look the best, but it had a few green leaves and buds on the ends and in searching online, it was determined that it was still alive and would begin growing more buds and eventually bloom as time continued on...

And somewhere in time, in the midst of moving from AL to TN, the winter, the chaos of our lives that came with our move, the plant began to die. I blame it on my lack of a green thumb, not understanding how much light to give it or where to place it in or out of the house or how much water to give it, etc., but perhaps it was neglect. I should have read more about it, understood how to take care of it better, paid more attention to it, but I didn't...

Only a few weeks ago did I come to accept that Hailey's Azalea plant was dead. And perhaps I am to blame.



Today, I was reminded of that, which is why I feel a heavy sadness over it and a little bit of mother's guilt. I'm sure you can imagine the thoughts that run through my head every time I lay eyes on sad looking thing ... or maybe you can't. It begins a little something like this:

My daughter's dead, and now I've killed the plant that I bought to live on in memory of her.

In killing her remembrance plant, I've killed the hope of having planted something in her memory when she died and cherishing it for years to come... It's just not the same to go out and plant something now. I don't want to look at it in the future and think something like, "Hailey had been gone for 15 months when I planted this in her memory. That was 5 years ago. I want to think, "I planted this when Hailey passed away. That was 5 years ago. It's lived a year for each year she's been gone." Now I can't do that.

But I need to do something, and as I've learned, things don't work out perfectly, so you have to make the most of what you've been given. Perhaps I can tweak my 'dream' a little bit and change it to planting something in her memory every year since she's passed. I don't really know... But I will still plant all of my flower bulbs in our yard here in Tennessee, even if I do have to leave them. At least while I'm here, I can look at them and think of her...

Somehow this feels like another reminder of the frailty of life, the cycle of life and death, that nothing lasts forever (except God's love)... But all I want is a reminder of life, of Hailey, in something blooming and beautiful, that will last here on earth while I'm here...

 

May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day. May songbirds serenade you every step along the way. May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue. And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through. ~Irish Blessing