Everything Happens For a Reason

Or...Things Not To Say To Someone Who Is Grieving

Today I noticed that two orchids are blooming in our picture window. My mom and I were very connected - sometimes in a what could possibly be described as co-dependent sort of way - but we also had very different strengths. She inherited her fathers gift of stain removal. I don’t even wash whites on hot (or separate laundry for that matter). My mom was a great gardener when she had time. Our house was full of plants. She would spend time each day watering, run a humidifier in the winter and fertilize at times of year, I have since learned, her plants didn’t need to be fertilized. I believe that if plants can’t survive a bit of benign neglect they weren’t meant to belong to me.

So, back to the orchids. One of them my mom received as a gift and one of them a cashier at Trader Joes gave to me when I was buying snacks for my first babies birth. Neither of them recieve any kind of special care. They get watered when I remember to water them. Every once in a while I will throw an ice cube on their roots. And yet, here they are, blooming beautifully.

No one can convince me (no one has tried, for the record) that my parents deaths were part of some greater plan. We don’t believe in that kind of God. After a lifetime of service that would be a pretty crappy way to be thanked. But, I do wonder what life would be like if they hadn’t gotten sick, if they hadn’t died. I wouldn’t be sitting at this desk, in this room, writing this. Would we be living on this side of town? Would we have a second child? Would we have spent years surrounded by unconditional support and love? Would these mostly-neglected orchids be blooming?

In the midst of our deep and unwavering grief what beauty shines through? Is it okay to notice it when it does? I am not ready to see a silver lining but what about the beauty of a laughing baby on a sunny day? That, maybe, just maybe, I am ready to see.

The orchids themselves in all their blooming glory