I am hoping to write a memoir entry with more about my mother’s garden. She died unexpectedly almost two weeks ago. Although what was diagnosed as a relatively minor heart condition had led her to move into Golden Sands Assisted Living a year ago, her friends and caregivers there…and I…expected her to go on for another ten years enjoying the garden that we have been creating in the facility’s enclosed courtyard. We will continue to do that garden, while we try to decide what to do with my mother’s house and garden in Long Beach. It has been for sale for a year but remains unsold. I am pretty firmly fixed on continuing to live at the mouth of the Columbia even though Long Beach is a lovely town. It is true that gardening is one form of art that dies with the artist, so with our decision to probably not live in her house, I am not sure what will become of the garden there.
The one thing my mother and I bonded on was gardening, and also a love of reading, where our taste did overlap on Dick Francis books.
At her memorial, we displayed photos along with a bouquet sent by Allan’s family in Seattle (his mother died earlier this year), and two bouquets from her garden and from my garden.
I am now flummoxed with many decisions and with such a sad feeling that she did not live to see us turn the whole courtyard outside her apartment window into a garden paradise. It was nice enough this first summer but did not grow as lushly as I had hoped. The sandy soil needs more improvement and there is a surprisingly severe slug or snail problem in the enclosed courtyard. She waited all summer for her dahlias to bloom. Finally one did, and I do hope she got to see it the day before she died. (“Oh, so NOW you decide to bloom!” I thought at it when we went up to begin to clear out her apartment the day after her death.)
A few days before she died, we had agreed to help install a new garden at the local mortuary, Penttila’s Chapel by the Sea. The plants were mostly chosen by the mortician and his partner. (It helps a lot to be acquainted and friendly with the mortician when someone dies…eases the making of arrangements.) As it happened, we were planting up the garden on a day six days past her death….and while her style ran more to gladiolas, dahlias and lilies and roses, I think she would have liked the results.
Here is the link to her obituary.
She wrote a short autobiography for her women veteran’s group:
Virginia (Cox) Johnston USMCWR
(“Ginger”)
I was born in Seattle and raised north of the city in Snohomish County. I graduated from Edmonds High School in 1942 and went to an office job in Seattle. In 1944, I had the idea to join the Air Corps in honor of my fiancé, who was shot down in a Boeing Flying Fortress in a raid over Germany. However, the Air Corps wouldn’t even take my name until I was 20 (in April). I walked down the sidewalk and saw the Marine Corps recruiting office. (“Be a Marine and Free a Marine to Fight.”) They signed me up, gave me a physical exam, etc., and told me to come back on my birthday to take the oath, which I did.
I had my boot training at Camp Lejeune, NC. After about two weeks at camp, they were going to discharge me because I was “not up to the physical standards of the USMC.” When I said I wanted to stay, they sent me to a psychiatrist, who decided if I wanted to be Marine so bad they would let me stay.
After graduating, I drew six weeks mess duty (to serve the next class). Then I was assigned to Marine Headquarters in Washington, D.C.. I was given a stripe right away because “they didn’t want any Privates walking around the nation’s capitol.” I reported to the Ordnance Division where I worked for the next three years.
The highlight of my time in Washington was when my boss at work wanted to form a rifle team. We competed with any team we could find (even high school boys). Then a group of four or five of us started competing at civilian rifle matches up and down the east coast from Pennsylvania to North Carolina.
A big disappointment was not being able to march in the funeral parade for President Roosevelt. (I wasn’t tall enough.) But I did march in the parade for Admiral Nimitz when he came back from the Pacific.
As the war wound down, most of the WRs wanted out. They needed clerks to handle the return of thousand of Marines coming back, so I shipped over for another ten months. After I got home, I joined the action reserves. 1950 rolled around with the “police action” in Korea and our unit was called up. I was newly married and I didn’t want to go. I finagled a medical discharge. My husband walked with me when I signed out so I wouldn’t change my mind when they played the USMC hymn.
In 1977, we both left our jobs with the City of Seattle. (He retired at 63 and I quit at 55.) We moved to our retirement home outside of Yelm. Then for ten years we snowbirded to Mesa, Arizona, six months out of the year.
After Bruce died in 1995, my daughter wanted me to move to the Long Beach Peninsula to be nearer to her. (She lives in Ilwaco.) I moved to Long Beach in 1999 where I lived until 2009, when I moved to Golden Sands Assisted Living Facility. If I can’t live at my home, this is a wonderful place to be.
That dahlia is beautiful — perhaps its role is as a transition between your mom’s death and the garden that will live after her.
Lovely garden for Penttila.
LikeLike
Please accept my sincerest condolences during this time. A love of gardening is one of the finest gifts of all…I’m thankful that your mother and you shared this wondrous gift.
If you are able…take some time to remember, be sad, be mad, be thankful and to “just be”.
Grieving the loss of a mother, in particular, is a devastating thing for anyone to go through. You’ll have good days and horribly bad days, but that’s okay – it’s part of the process.
I found gardening extremely therapeutic after the loss of my mom and mom-in-law (within a week’s time) so I’m hoping that your passion for gardening will assist you during this time of your life.
Namaste,
Marie
LikeLike
Thanks so much.
LikeLike
[…] Pam and Linda and the nurses and staff all thought mom would have ten happy years there…but sadly, it was only one. I wrote the rest of the story here… […]
LikeLike
[…] mom had recently died….And we were under the stress of waiting through a real estate deal ‘s slow progression […]
LikeLike
[…] 2012 garden at Golden Sands Assisted Living disappointed me. It just did not get enough water, and I did not figure out the problem til well […]
LikeLike