The Lemon Tree, Part 3
The four of us solemnly stood in the backyard at the North edge of the lawn over a small box nestled lovingly into a shallow hole by our 8-year-old daughter. Sniffling, she choked out a eulogy for her belovéd hamster Frisky. My husband asked our son, all of 3 years old, if he’d like to say anything.
“So long Fricky! You were a good hammie. We’ll buy another one.” said our son, displaying early signs of his joyous humor and sense of the absurd. Our daughter turned to cuff him but then we all dissolved into laughter, threw some soil into the hole, and sprinkled some seeds on the top. A cupcake in the soil as it were, replete with sprinkles. Wiping away our tears of mixed emotions, we went inside.
Inside the box, the cream and brown long haired hamster slowly unfroze and began to decompose; he had died while we were away so the housesitter had stuffed him in the freezer for us to discover upon our return. Yikes, not the best homecoming for an 8-year-old.
Serafina was the next garden burial. A Bengal chosen at the animal shelter, she had been mutilated by a prior owner who declawed her front and back. She enjoyed just 2 short years of comfort and freedom before a terrier ripped her apart. A teenager had left the window to his truck open and the dog, true to his nature, had hunted her down. Nature is cruel. I wept bitterly. Serafina was buried under a Shishigashira camellia on the East side of the house.
****
Passing time with my 100-year-old mother-in-law in the middle of the night, I asked “What do you think happens after we die?”
“Nothing,” she said crisply, lucidly.
“Well, I believe in recycling,” I said, “all our molecules, elements, and atoms returning to the universe as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.” CHON to the end I thought silently to myself; she would not get the sci fi reference, but she knew the chemistry.
“If you were to be reincarnated, what would you like to be? I asked.
“A tree” she stated firmly. She was a perfect mother-in-law to me; this only confirmed it. I told her that humans can be composted now in Washington State. She suddenly gripped my arm asking breathlessly, “Can I go there?!”
“Nope, too late. And you’re not a resident.”
“Too bad” she said, letting go of the vise-grip of my arm. “I’d still like to be a tree.”
“Deal,” I said. “Me too.”
****
Our son’s cat of 17 years now has bladder cancer. A hunter, he keeps my garden free of rats, mice and bunnies; gleefully eating the latter inside after re-enacting the outdoor shenanigans on the white living room carpet. My husband remains unamused. I clean up the mess, praise his feline exuberance and thank him for protecting the plants and garden that I love.
Now, a generation later, I’m the silver-haired lady, anticipating my own tangled confusion at this impending death of my child’s cat. Will our son fly home to dispel my burgeoning grief with a silly, absurd, existential quip? What will I plant on top of this fur baby when he goes? Not a lemon tree for sure for this sweet hunter and something more substantial than Fricky’s annuals or Serafina’s delicate Shishi gashira Camellia. Which side of the garden? The South and West sides are still open, I muse.
I suspect many of us ‘plant’ our pets in our gardens. Is this maudlin, practical or illegal? Well, maybe if you planted Jimmy Hoffa, but he was no pet. Now, unbidden, the image of Jimmy Hoffa as a Black Walnut, poisoning the neighborhood and taking all the sun pops into mind. While none of us relish the imagery of CHON in the veggie bed or in the rose bed as seen out of a ‘Rear Window’, it’s this essential molecular recycling that gives us Spring.
I will never look at a Lemon Tree in the same way, ever again.
These are: The Stories Plants Tell About Their People.
~ Fin ~
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Cover image by: Dina Russell, 2023.
