Empty Nest

The poppies bloom in the garden just around Father's Day every year. We have always had poppies in the garden. They were my dad's favorite flower. At the cemetery where he is buried, real flowers are prohibited. The only flowers allowed are plastic ones. What a pity.

We devised a plan, my mother and I, to foil the plastocrats. Dad's tombstone is right on the edge of the cemetery, a foot from a wire fence separating it from a wooded adjacent vacant property. We will go with a few plants of poppies and plant them just on the dividing line, behind the tombstone. It might work, but then again it might not. We'll never know until we try.

The new medication seems to be working fine. Mum is more herself than I've seen her in many months and there don't seem to be any side effects. I still notice the changes and I find it disorienting that she asks "permission" for everything she does. So unlike her, and so unlike me to play this role.

But it's a small price to pay for her presence. The other day, I found this empty nest on the lawn. I picked it up and looked at it closely. What care had gone into it's construction. There were some packing shredded plastic paper bits, some animal hair (no doubt from my cat). The nest looked as though it had been very comfy, but now it was abandoned. What tragedy had emptied it? Had the eggs been attacked by some marauder? Or had the couple been killed by a stray cat? Or was it those darned ravens?

I sometimes stop and think of what life will be when she is no longer there and a cold hand touches my heart. I quickly banish the thought and tell myself that that bridge will be crossed when the time comes. In the meantime, I focus on each passing day, counting my blessings.