Photo by Paul Mayer
BY KIMBERLY MAYER
“I can’t do this,” he said.
My father was a smart man. He may have figured it out. Coronavirus was sweeping through his assisted living facility outside Boston, and everyone was being tested, residents and staff alike.
A modest man, in his own quiet way he was extrordinarily accomplished in his life. But at ninety-six years of age he wasn’t up for something unknown that no one knew how to treat. That much he knew. He read The Boston Globe daily.
“Life goes on until it ends,” that’s what dad always said when he was trying to help me with my inconsolable grief in losing others.
Deeply worried about him, yet unable to be there, I ran off to the nursery to fill three large hanging baskets. I needed something to do. Tired of looking at last summer’s geranium mummies, I’d start over with fresh soil, and—on the drive to town I saw it clearly—hanging fuschia. A nectar producing plant with tube-shaped blooms specially adapted to accommodate the long bills of hummingbirds, my father’s littlest friends.
It was there at the nursery when I received the call. Hospice was by dad’s side now and this was my only chance to say goodbye. I think I said, “I’m at the nursery, daddy. You’d be here too, if you were with me, and we’d be extraordinarily happy.” Something nonsensical like that.
Looking back, purchasing plants at nurseries may have been one of my father’s only indulgences. Together we could spend half the day there filling our wagon, and often did.
I was crying so hard, I was grateful to be masked.
At the same time, my project remained important to me. Julie of Julie’s nursery helped me load trays of twenty-four fuschia starts, eight for each basket, into the back of my car. She advised peat be mixed half and half with potting soil, and an organic flowering fertilizer which looked a bit different than my organic fertilizer at home, so I purchased that too. Julie could have sold me the moon that day, anything in the rush to grow my beautiful baskets.
We set up the planting operation on the picnic table at home. The table Bill Maas built when we first arrived on island. Eight fuchsia starts per basket, hung, and watered gently. They looked so lighthearted and promising beneath the eave. In the evenings we covered the baskets with clear plastic, for it’s still cold. And every morning, the unveiling. There is something in that ritual too.
There are two species of hummingbird on island: Anna’s and Rufous. Native to Western coastal regions, Anna’s Hummingbirds are increasingly found here year-round, living in the branches of our coastal scrub. Rufous Hummingbirds, on the other hand, have the longest migration of any bird their size. Wintering in Mexico, spring in California, summers in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and zipping over to the Rocky Mountains for fall before returning to Mexico. Feisty and territorial, the visiting reddish brown Rufous try to chase off the resident emerald green and gray Anna’s each year. So we just keep putting up more feeders and more nectar producing plants to accommodate every one.
When we moved onto San Juan Island, mom and dad’s place on The Cape was very much on our mind. Shingled cottages by the sea. Ragtag fleets of boats by the water’s edge in summer. Clams in the muddy sand. And a writing hut where Dad had had a garden shed. The baby mice that once fell onto the brim of dad’s hat when he was puttering around in the shed. He cared for them too.
Dad has always been with me in writing, in gardening, and now, birds. He wrote his memoir, which prompted me to write mine. He explained Master Gardeners to me as “missionaries of the gardening world, Jesuits for all their knowledge,” and I became one. He led by example in the garden, and now he’s got me loving birds.
“What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer…” Richard Powers
a little elbow room
a little elbow room 
Beautifully written Kim. Hope you are having a Sun with lots of fuchsia blooms & hummingbirds flittering around. Rhonda Rhonda Ahrens Glenair Rocky Mtn 303-748-0214 http://www.glenair.com
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Thank you, Rhonda.
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I remember that posting as well. Also emotional and lovely. And educational.
Wonderful tribute to your father!!!
Alice ========== Alice B. Acheson, Book Marketing/Publishing Consultant P. O. Box 735 Friday Harbor, WA 98250 360/378-5850 http://sites.google.com/site/alicebacheson a little elbow room wrote on 5/3/2020 11:31 AM: > WordPress.com > a little elbow room posted: ” Photo by Paul Mayer BY KIMBERLY MAYER “I > can’t do this,” he said. My father was a smart man. He may have > figured it out. Coronavirus was sweeping through his assisted living > facility outside Boston, and everyone was being tested, re” >
Thank you, Alice. That poem by Hilda Doolittle, Never More Will the Wind, I love it too.
Oh Kim, the tenderest of words from the heart of a loving and devoted daughter. All that he was, all that he taught you will live in you forever and breathe life in to all you touch. This was just beautiful. I hung my hummingbird feeders today filled with the sweet homemade nectar. Right next to my hanging plants to draw them “home” again this summer. Now, I will always think of you and your wonderful father whenever I see one. Thank you for touching my heart.
Val, I love that you remember my father, and that you and I have found each other again after all these years. Dad was delighted to hear that.
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Beautiful, Kim! I can see it all. And fuschia is prevalent in the very moist southern parts of Chile. A gorgeous plant.
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What a rich life you are having, my dear! And, it just hit me, both of us writing on our dads.
Love you and can’t wait to see you again.
This is beautiful, Kim! I’m very sorry for your loss and will be thinking of you and your dad every day I can get into the garden this year ❤
Thank you, Isla. Means a lot to me from you.
Kim, I love learning that your father was such an inspiration to your gardening and your writing. And that you planted those beautiful baskets. I too will be thinking of you and your dad as I putter in my own tiny garden.
Our memoirs and our gardens. Keeping busy in the second half of life, aren’t we?
Wow, what a moving tribute and I am so sorry. Your father was a gentle and perceptive soul….It is so hard to be an orphan in this world. Even with mom’s watercolors, binoculars and bird books in possession, I never traverse the hours of any day without thinking of her. Loss like a deep scar will heal but it never goes away…and my compass takes me backwards and forwards in memories and uncertainty. I love that your father loved hummingbirds. The black chinned hummers have been here for a few weeks but we await the rufous and their frantic bullying at the multiple feeders that will swarm with activity come summer once the babies arrive. Now, I too will remember your father this way.. and plan to see the hanging baskets of fuschia at your place beckoning the hummingbirds’ small hovering bodies and needle-like bills while satisfying their in flight metabolism for the long journey ahead . Love as always, Jane
I love that you loved my father like I loved your mother, Jane. Together they have a hold on us, along with everything else in our lives, I’d say! XXO
I agree that this is such a powerful tribute to your father. You have a really remarkable ability to open your heart so beautifully!
Thank you, Paula. Now if only I could write like you can paint! XXO
Kim — what a beautiful tribute! I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you, means so much from you.