On the changing of the clocks, grief and the garden
Reflections on navigating this tricky time of year
Photo by Karolina Badzmierowska on Unsplash
My late husband Rob loved to garden. Right now, in the changing of the seasons, he would be out there pruning, large, calloused fingers running along the rose bushes, muttering something about newts, gathering leaves for the compost heap.
I would see the top of his shaved head, the shadow of his tall frame loping along the boundary line. He’d come in with the scent of Autumn and cigarettes, taking off his dirty boots off carefully at the door lest I make him mop up the mess. All that work undone by our dog faithfully trailing muddy paw prints behind him. On a lazy Sunday, nursing a strong coffee steeped in three sugars, he’d look at the bulb catalogues, asking me what I’d like to see in spring.
Since then, a lot has changed. He is no longer here, and that garden belongs to someone else. Somewhere, close to the ground, snakeshead fritillaries quietly bloom, their purple speckled heads bowed. I wonder if whoever calls that place home, is even aware they are there, nestled beneath the ferns.
After he died, when I moved house, I didn’t garden because I didn’t know how to, but I knew it was important to have one, even if it was tiny. Slowly, I learned. I grew things, spent time in it, tended to it. My sister calls it a little oasis, and something looses in my father’s chest when he comes to visit and feels calm surrounded by the greenery.
Part of my love for the garden is the simple joy of watching something grow, sensing the slow, green life beating underneath the soil. Another part is that it is where I keep a part of my husband’s soul, which blooms in some of the pots he left behind. He is not tethered to it, but he lives through it.
The other day, I looked outside at my garden, and saw a lily I had never seen before emerge from one of these pots, buds tightly wrapped, a glimpse of the bright pink trumpets that would unfurl in time. It felt as if he was saying hello, I can still surprise you. I’ve only ever seen its companion, a white lily, which emerges the moment the season has changed for good, when there is no trace of summer in the air and the ground, and the clocks are due to go backwards.
Deep grief chemically alters time. Sometimes it makes it seem as if no time has passed, and sometimes it is as if it is endless. Rob died eight years ago, and there are days when the moment I saw him at the funeral home seems like last week. Then there is the sense that I have been living with this grief that at times, feels too much to bear, and the rest of life feels so long to be carrying it.
Luckily, neither state lasts too long. And I am lucky that a lot of hard work has gone into creating a life that I mostly love, and so there are innumerable anchors that hold me fast to reality, and all the good things I want to achieve and experience.
But the times it seems unavoidable, unbearable, are times like the clocks going backwards. The signs in the garden that life is winding down. Sunset that creeps earlier and earlier, and the sunrise that seems to take forever, often yielding to a milky grey. I’m not sure why I find it so hard.
Perhaps it is because it feels like an hour of darkness is added to my life, and it feels like so much has already been lost to it. A reminder of my difference in the world, that while some celebrate an extra hour in bed, I mourn the time that feels subtracted.
Or perhaps it is the sluggishness that winter brings in the Western hemisphere, particularly when the seasons change. It reminds me of my worst times – when I grieved, and when I had long covid. Lying in bed, unable to move. The feeling that your blood is the viscosity of treacle. The lack of light pressing down on your chest. Not comforting, not reassuring, but smothering.
Of course like the anniversaries, the build-up is worse. The clocks change, the world hasn’t ended and life must continue. Teeth must be brushed, beds must be made, breakfast must be had. Every year, I try to do something different, something new to dull the sharp corners of its arrival.
A cottage pie, a night out, a night in, picking my favourite bulbs in the garden centre. This year I may just meet the day as it comes, and remember that the moment the clocks change, we are travelling along the arc to a time when it will change again, moving forward into light and new life. And perhaps it is a sense of perspective. In New Zealand, where Rob was born, the clocks will be going forward.
I still might make that cottage pie, though.
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This is so beautiful Poorna and made me tear up on the train . Last Friday I wrote about how I love autumn but after a painful break-up over the summer and having to put my dog to sleep last month, all the things I shared and loved about the season were making me feel so overwhelmingly sad. I made a list of all the things I want to do this season to make new memories just for me, whilst keeping the nostalgia of the happier times. I love how you said meeting the day where you are at.x
So beautifully written 💛 November is my hardest month. It’s the one where grief feels the closest. Sending you all the love Poorna and I absolutely do think you should make the cottage pie ✨