My birthday purple tulips bent forward and collapsed into a finale. Tulips don’t fight endings. Like ballerinas, they take a graceful bow and are remembered for their elegance. I think they are more concerned with grace than age, and I thank them for that lesson.
In what I call my Camelot month, May is when I celebrate a birthday, a wedding anniversary, and Mother’s Day. I have a tradition of displaying flowers and cards on my dining room table, where I enjoy watering the flowers and rereading the cards and messages until the tulips take their final bow, signaling that my year has started anew.
It’s kissing loved ones goodbye.
Sometime during that period, Mr. Moon visits. This year, he arrived at my garden window on a drizzly May gray evening, astounding me once again with his ability to avoid raindrops.
“Looks like someone was popular this year,” he said with his impish half-moon smile, as he took in the goodies on my table.
“Let’s have tea, and I’ll give you a rundown,” I said as I put the kettle on.
“You’re looking pretty good after a year that you survived the Altadena fires and a broken hip,” he observed. “How are you feeling?”
Actually, I felt pretty good listening to the rain on my no longer leaking roof.
“You tend to do some deep reflecting on your birthday; what’s on your mind tonight?” Mr. Moon asked with concern.
Since it was also my wedding anniversary, the eighth one since George passed away, I was thinking about how he always gave me two cards, one for his wife and one for his girlfriend, and thinking about it still made me laugh.
I was remembering a meeting I had with my grief therapist, where she gave me a sheet of paper with concentric circles and asked me to write down the names of people I could count on, starting with the closest. In my grief, I could only come up with three names. And how wrong I was. How many people turned their love for George to me. Life and enrichment continue as tulips cheer me on.
Email patriciabunin@sbcglobal.net. Follow her on Patriciabunin.com.