A pot of flowers doesn’t seem like much. It can’t begin to compensate for the loss of rose beds, lemon trees, azaleas just coming into their glory. But at least it’s something to greet my in-laws the day they’ll cram what they can of more than sixty years of marriage into two tiny rooms in their new retirement home.
My in-laws have never much cared about material things; flowers are the one indulgence they allow themselves. A pale yellow Cecil Bruner rose foams over the entry of the Craftsman bungalow they are about to leave behind. Blue bells, daisies, holly—every season’s bounty—grace the coffee table in their living room. Now the vases, furniture, and garden tools have all been donated to charity. My father-in-law, who disapproves of brooding as a foolish waste of time, has banished all misgivings about their imminent uprooting. Still, he confessed to me a few days earlier that he felt a pang as his prized roses started to leaf out. He will want a bit of dirt to fuss over.
At the nursery, I select lemon-yellow ranunculus, blue pansies, white impatiens, and a single periwinkle to spill over the edge of a big ceramic planter. The rich black potting soil tumbles from bag to bowl. I carefully ease the flowers out of their plastic cubes and transplant them into the readied dirt, adding soil to fill in the empty spaces. I give the pot a gentle soaking. It looks perfect.
I lug the heavy planter to the car, wedging it against my in-laws’ first microwave, which will now suffice for a kitchen should they require refuge from the communal dining hall. My in-laws have never had a dishwasher or clothes dryer, and they refused the cordless phone we tried to press upon them. It’s doubtful they will go to the trouble of mastering this newfangled technology just for a cup of tea. But hot plates are not allowed, and it’s important to hold out the hope of hospitality should somebody drop by.
I get to the retirement home before the movers and my in-laws arrive. Yellow caution tape, the kind used in crime scenes, blocks the path to the little concrete pad we charitably call a patio. Perhaps the dismantling of a long life is indeed a crime, but I am too frustrated to appreciate the symbolism.
I inquire at the front desk about the obstruction.
“Which unit are your in-laws moving into?” asks the receptionist.
“It’s on the end, overlooking the swamp,” I say.
“We don’t call it a swamp,” she admonishes before explaining that the path is cordoned off due to high tide warnings. “We say ‘marsh.’”
Since my in-laws refer to their fellow residents as “inmates,” I imagine them bristling at the euphemisms, if not the rising waters, about to engulf them. They may be old, but they’re nobody’s fools.
Swamp or marsh, it is clear that no senior citizens will be allowed to wander off into a flood zone, so I resign myself to an inconvenient detour. Bracing against the weight of the pot, I gingerly pick my way across soggy hillocks toward the patio. A few more steps and I’ll be home free on the solid concrete.
As I bend to put the pot in place, it slips out of my arms. I watch helplessly, unable to reverse the inexorable crash. Dirt and ceramic shards are everywhere. The flowers I had so tenderly transplanted now lay crushed under two cubic feet of soil.
I pull the biggest shard from the rubble, frantically combing through the dirt with my bare hands. The sweet blue faces of the pansies emerge, and here is the tattered head of the ranunculus. One after another, I toss the survivors onto the stretcher-like shard. It is a cool, overcast day; with enough soil clinging to their roots, perhaps the flowers will pull through.
