Lizzy’s Garden

In April of 2018, I took Lizzy to visit my big sister and brother-in-law’s new home, never dreaming that it would become our home too in less than a year. What I remember most from that visit was the massive and majestic cherry tree in full bloom on the right side of the house. The abundance of rich, pink blooms were so numerous that they visibly weighed the tree down, causing several branches to bow into the huge open windows of the home. I remember placing Lizzy’s tiny fingers against the delicate petals and the wonder in her eyes as she gazed at the blooms practically bursting into the house.

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After my marriage ended and Lizzy and I moved in to my big sister’s new home, that cherry tree became an unconscious symbol for me. I believed, without thinking or stating, that the April blooms of 2019 would be a fresh start for me, Lizzy, and the new baby that would one day be named Cecilia. I couldn’t wait for the day when an older Lizzy, with deepened speech and cognition, would be able to see the cherry blooms, learn the name of the tree and play beneath its graceful shade.

Lizzy never saw that tree bloom again, but it didn’t stop her from learning the word “flower.” She walked her play stroller all around my sister’s property collecting golden and white daffodils, which were the only flowers brave enough to show their faces during that cold March. She walked that stroller beneath the tightly closed buds of the cherry tree, and day after day, I told her how I could hardly wait for that tree to bloom so that she could see the flowers again.

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When the cherry tree burst into glorious bloom only days after Lizzy’s death in April of 2019, I hated it. I hated the millions of tiny, white flowers I could see out my bedroom window on the trees that had stubbornly remained brown and empty through the final weeks of Lizzy’s life. I hated the tiny purple flowers sprouting all over the lawn, the fuzzy caterpillar crossing the path to the front door and the birds that sang incessantly and yet were unable to fill the gaping silence that Lizzy had left behind. I hated how green and alive everything was when all I could feel was dead inside, despite the baby that moved within me like an unwelcome parasite.

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In April of 2020, I learned that Cecilia would never be able to see the cherry tree in full bloom, but that didn’t stop me from buying a bucket swing and hanging it on one of the cherry tree branches to help Cecilia manage stress and improve her proprioception. This April, I have been watching the buds on that tree begin to bloom and open–just a little bit more every day– for the past week. But that tree is not the only thing blooming.

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On the day my little sister brought me home from the hospital, my big sister said to me, “Next year, I’d like to plant a garden for Lizzy.” My big sister, Lizzy, and I had spent endless hours both at our favorite nursery and planting in our respective gardens, as Lizzy industriously helped us weed, climbing nimbly in and out of the raised beds. Lizzy was our little gardener, and a garden was the perfect way to honor her memory. I responded simply, “I would love that,” and so that’s what we did last summer.

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I’ve been watching Lizzy’s garden come into the bloom this spring. First, it was the crocuses, then the daffodils, then the hyacinths, and the bleeding heart. The young, weeping cherry tree in the center of the garden took longer to bloom but then burst forth with a surprising quantity of delicate pink flowers. Now, Lizzy’s garden is all green and pink and purple and yellow, with the silent gray statue of Our Lady standing sentinel.

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This morning, it seemed that everywhere I looked was green. Now, it is the early evening, and everywhere I look is bathed in golden twilight. The chickens are calling a gentle lullaby to the sun while the branches of a dogwood sway slightly in the breeze which has just deepened with the edge of a chill. I smile as I remember a conversation with a gardening specialist at our favorite nursery. He handed me back the leaves from my hydrangea, which had bruised and discolored in a late frost and told me not to worry. “Nothing can stop plants in the springtime,” he told me, his voice creaking like an oak tree. I smiled, thanked him, readjusted Lizzy on my hip and kissed her golden head as she reached tiny arms to fold around my neck.

I’ve been thinking about sainthood lately. What it means. How to achieve it. What a saint looks like, sounds like, and acts like when he or she is alive. When you read stories about the lives of the saints, one theme comes through pure and true: they are sinners. They are broken, failed and failing, afraid and despairing, frustrated and overwhelmed. They are people with people’s emotions and weaknesses. What makes them saints is what they choose to do with that pain, how they use it, and why they choose to keep going in the face of it.

Lizzy’s story of sainthood is not the story of a sinner who doubted and despaired and honed fortitude like a weapon to fight back the darkness. Lizzy’s story is the story of a saint who walked unafraid into everything that being human meant and kept walking until she learned to fly. She never grew old enough to know what sin was or how to commit it; she was a child who gave and received love with a total lack of self-reservation. Everything that Lizzy was, she was all of the time, without fear or apology, without shame or doubt. She was human; she was life; she was light. Unbridled.

I think God is calling us all to become saints, simply because each human person is unrepeatable and therefore has an unrepeatable gift of self to give to the world. I’m not sure what kind of saint God is calling me to be, but I know that following this call is following Lizzy’s voice and Lizzy’s example. I cannot be the kind of saint that she is, but I can become the kind of mother that she deserved to Cecilia. As long as I’m alive, this remains possible, and that possibility drives my every conscious thought.

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Lizzy, like the springtime, was unstoppable. What stops us from becoming the people we were born to become? I have my suspicions, but the burgeoning life surrounding me is telling me not to entertain them. Not to make them more real than they pretend to be. Because dwelling in what is most real is the way to sainthood. And the way to Lizzy.

My big sister is a hero to me for many reasons that I will never post on this blog. Today, the reasons that stand out are the garden that she helped me plant for Lizzy, the lavender that she tended through the winter, the water bottle engraved “Lizzy Lou” that sits silently by her bedside, and the sign that hangs in her hallway, reading “Because someone we love is in heaven, there’s a little bit of heaven in our home.”

From March 20 through April 5 of 2021, I was watching Lizzy’s garden come into bloom. This past week, I’ve watched the old cherry tree begin to bloom. I’ve watched Cece sitting in a bed of flowers and turning her struggling eyes to the sunlight, a look of awe and wonder on her face. I cannot help but see Lizzy in her eyes, in the sunlight, the purple flowers and the cherry tree. I see Lizzy in the sky which arches above us in a glorious blue corona dusted with fluffy clouds, multiplying and spreading like prayers. I can feel Lizzy in Cece’s laughter as I push her on the swing, or as we walk barefooted in the grass. And I know–with a certainty that makes my heart swell–that Lizzy’s garden is growing in places I’ve never been and never seen . . . and that the process of becoming a saint may be like planting seeds in a garden you’ll never watch grow.

Or, perhaps it is like sitting by the side of a little blind girl as she gazes in delight at the sun and choosing to believe that she’s seeing her hero of a big sister.

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