Moonflowers and Roses

Moonflowers, my dad grew these beauties one year, huge white blooms opening at night, dark green foliage – they grew up a piece of lattice he attached to the side of our house.  He was so proud of those flowers, he set a spotlight out in the yard, and at night, he would turn that light on so everyone could see those beautiful flowers.  He took pictures. He was proud of these large white blooms, white, purity, and in them, perhaps, a way to be closer to God.  I don’t know if this is what he thought when he grew those moonflowers, but it is how I remember them, what I think of moonflowers today.  I know my father loved roses, too.  Roses were harder to grow, took lots of care, got diseases, attracted insects and beetles, needed pruning, and had thorns.

Thinking about moonflowers and roses at this moment reminds me of my family.  To be honest, almost anything I think about can come full circle to family.  Family is important to me.  Over the years, and especially since my father died, my family has become disjointed, removed from the close knit, tight, loving family images I embrace from childhood.  I want to shoo away the reality of what may actually be, and instead, fabricate a family of perfection.  It is quite possible my family has always been disjointed, and yet, I like to believe that we were once as the full bloom on a rose, perfectly formed, and smelling wonderful.

Roses have thorns, and families can be like those roses with thorns.  Some families seem beautiful, like a perfectly formed bloom on a well tended rose bush. The well tended rose, the well tended family blooms.  If roses are not cared for, blooms may not form into those images we love to enjoy, beautiful to look at, lovely to smell.  Instead, untended, edges turn brown; blooms look tired, worn, and wilted.  A wilted rose soon loses its petals; the untended family falls apart.

Dad was our glue.  He was the cheerleader, head of the house, one who made final decisions, one who you could count on to be stern when needed, and one to let you hang on tight and hug when a big dose of comfort from strong arms was just the right medicine.  He was the one who grew moonflowers; to show us how easy it was to try something different, and to succeed in trying new things, to feel good about showing off accomplishments, to be proud of who we were, and from where we came.

In the last few years, and more so in recent months, feelings of indecision, fear, apprehension, conflict, and loads of drama seem to unfold at every corner.  Small things  which at one time may have slipped by like a sled on a perfect snow covered slope for sledding, are getting caught up in the lives around me, like wagon wheels in the 1800’s, mired in thick, unyielding mud.

On Monday, my younger sister called me. I answered without taking off my coat—our older sister had been in surgery this day, she recounted what she knew of my older sister’s double knee replacement that morning.  I listened carefully, thinking at any moment she would reveal some details I would need, a room number, the telephone number to the hospital, the surgery, or my sister's condition afterward, when out of the blue, she revealed the alter purpose of her call to me.  She was angry with me, and to my surprise, she was angry with me over pictures from our mother’s photo albums.

“I talked to mom about the pictures,” she began, her tone not yet escalated, my nerves still intact, my thoughts still clear, innocent, and calm.  “I pulled all the pictures out and put them in a bag, and they are here for you if you want them.”  This second sentence had taken on a surprising new tone, a bit sharper, a bit louder.  My internal antennae started to quiver and before I could respond to ask why she had done this, she flew into one of her familiar rants that occur on and off again like a lamp with a shorted wire.  “Mom told me there was no reason for you to have to come and sort through the albums and make copies, these are your pictures, so I went through all the albums and pulled out all your pictures and they are in a bag.  You can come and pick them up when you want them!” 

As she spoke, her voice got louder and faster with each word, my heart palpitating faster than a racing car motor. My coat became instantly too hot, the collar far too itchy.  My little sister, whom I adore, despite her famous bite, and whom my father fondly labeled “Jabber Jaws” was livid, perceiving a sort of conspiracy over pictures in a photo album.  The entire episode would be funny were it a sitcom on weeknight TV, but this was real life, and this was my little sister fuming at me right before Christmas over rights to photographs. 

I thought quickly back to Friday, when over the course of an approximate two minute conversation I had asked permission to stop by one evening when I had more time to leaf though albums and perhaps choose a few pictures I might like to have in my own albums.  (The photo albums in question belong to my mother who moved last year, and the majority of her belongings were parceled out to those of us with a bit of room to store those things we did not want disposed of or sold.)

Now, it was Tuesday, and in a mere four days, my dear sister has made phone calls to my mother – the specifics of which I still haven’t had the courage to find out – and her ruminating over those conversations with mom. Now, she is ready to pounce, to punch, to puncture, to pinch, to pillage, and cause pain, because she herself felt pain, pain she needed to transfer or bust.  I was the originator of the situation, so I became the obvious choice, the perfect outlet.  I could have tried harder to diffuse the situation, could have tried to be the glue, the comforter, the hugger, the one who stayed calm in the face of situations such as these, could have tried to put into practice the lessons taught by my father, but instead, inside my scratchy coat, inside my racing head, and racing heart, I simply hung up the receiver.  I slammed it down hard.  And several days later, we are still practicing Quaker’s Meeting, and the silence is ugly.

Silence as ugly as brown edged roses, uncared for with nasty thorns thriving as the diseased leaves fall off, but the pointed razor sharp thorns holding tight to their dark green color and piercing stick.  And what of those pictures I so innocently asked about?  They aren’t worth the drama of sleepless nights, or rifts in the family when the season calls for love, charity, and hope.  One sister is in misery over her lack of control over ownership of pictures, and one is coming out of surgery, her misery certainly much more important, and as a family, we should be joining our efforts to offer support, concern, and love for one of our own in the flesh.  Waiting until all we have is a photograph, something offering no words to hear, no hands to hold, no bodies to hug, is unacceptable.  My older sister came through her surgery with flying colors, and with only a brief anxiety episode related to her ambulance ride to the nursing facility, she is going to recover.  I hope my family recovers, escapes the period of struggling, struggling like being caught in a whirlpool, falling into some dark, wide open abyss, being disjointed, unable to reconnect.

I do not want my family to be disjointed.  Disjointed is a harsh word, but a fitting one when I consider how separated we are since the death of my father. Hope is like planting moonflowers for the first time, and watching them climb lattice with fresh white paint, propped against the house.  Hope is watching seeds sprout, and leaves form and climb, and, white tubular flowers appearing to open as day crawls, melting into the quiet of evening, and creeping into night.  Hope is shining a spotlight on the beauty, and leaving the rest to stay in the dark.