Without You

So I have been without a mother for two years now.

I don't really have anything else to say about it, but it has been on my mind a lot this week. And every single one of the last 730 days.

"Rent" served me well last year, and so I'll turn to it again...

Without you, the ground thaws, the rain falls, the grass grows.

Without you, the seeds root, the flowers bloom, the children play.
The stars gleam, the poets dream, the eagles fly, without you.
The earth turns, the sun burns.... without you.

So I took the liberty of taking out the "but I die" lines at the end of the verse, because it felt a bit melodramatic. I'm not dying without my mom. Part of me died with her that day. The daughter part. But new shoots are always stretching unexpectedly out of my heart.

Like the stalwart little hellebores plants that I chopped up to use for the wedding this weekend, but couldn't bear to throw in the trash even though I had lopped all their flowers and pretty leaves to use for bouquets. They are perennials, so I thought maybe someone with a yard could plant what was left of them and enjoy them next spring. I loaded their decimated little pots of dirt and roots into my trunk on Saturday. And forgot about them until last night. And when I finally scrambled to get them out of their dark and dry prison to see if they could be rescued, I noticed the most amazing thing.

Shoots.

That had sprung up through the dry dirt despite a dark trunk and lots of jostling.

And they now sit hopefully on my windowsill. Waiting for their comeback.