Life and Death One Spring

In memory of Chris Utterback

Several decades ago, in a little hospital in Hardin County, Iowa, I watched my mother die slowly of cancer. Her once luminous skin gradually turned green from the disease as she wasted away weak and alone.

The hospital room was big and contained two beds and a large window through which light poured early in the morning. A nurse asked me if I wanted to sleep the night there in the spare bed, as my sister had earlier, but I was so uncomfortable in the presence of death that I could not.

My mother lay on her side most of the time. She was quiet and the only sound between us often was her quite breathing. Occasionally, she looked over at me sitting in a chair and struggled to smile. She could no longer eat but occasionally her arm ventured slowly from the sheet that covered her and her hand plucked a chip of ice from a bowl beside her. She sucked the ice carefully with great concentration. There was not much left for either of us to say and, yet, there was also too much that needed saying. Being quiet together had to suffice.

Her death came before it was time, as had my father's four years earlier. It came too early for her and for me. A young man's experience cannot prepare him for such events and the simple words that should be said lay silent in my mouth.

The scars borne by the survivors of those who die young are invisible but they are rough and deep, and just when you think they have healed, the tears that would not come earlier appear in a flood.

These memories and events encircled me many years later as I struggled to bring silent seeds to life in a late winter, dark with overcast skies. Many times have I made metaphor, comparing the seasons of the garden with life and death. On days when I have touched soft earth and hard seed, I often remember the slow agony of a woman dying in a little hospital in Harden County Iowa. It was then I first questioned the ability of words to quiet the raw emotions engendered by death.

We can understand life through the metaphor of gardens. During winter the ground is muddy, frozen, and barren; for all the world it appears dead and useless. When the warmth and long days of summer arrive the garden, planted with fresh plump vegetables, graceful flowers, and scented herbs is vibrantly full of life.

Unfortunately, reality is unpredictable, and less comforting than the easy support of the garden metaphor. In the happy haze of summer, we often forget the seeds that failed to sprout, the cats that dug happy holes where favorite plants once were. What keeps my garden growing is the memory of past years of failure and the hope that this year the tomatoes will perform the way the catalogs say they will.

In life, as in the garden, it is the dark secret of unpredictable death that puzzles and bewilders, intrigues and frightens us. Everyone reaches to touch the new born child and hold its promise of young, long life, but, at the same time, we wish the elderly out of sight; their wrinkles and infirmities remind us of what awaits for them and for us.

In life there are sweet and glorious revelations every day, but the deep secrets hidden by death, especially that of a relative or dear friend, remain unknown and as mysterious as the fog. I find myself often wishing I could have talked more to my mother and grandmother about the things that really matter.

--Tom DeBaggio