I know springtime is glowing behind a fresh crop of New England snow clouds, even though another blizzard bears down on us. It’s March, but winter drags on in our household. My mother-in-law died last week, joining my father-in-law, I hope, in a heavenly paradise. She took to her grave the end of a grand era in my life—almost 40 years of perfect-world love and life defined by hot summer days on a Cape Cod beach or carriage-road bike rides on the coast of Maine or feasts, fun, and celebrations throughout the years for every good reason we could think of.

When I flip through photos and memories of bygone days, emotional blizzards roar forth, burying everything we did in the blink of a snowflake’s fast flight to Earth. I find myself feeling adrift, tumbling through gusts of tearful sobs it seems shouldn’t come so frequently because my mother-in-law’s life was a long and wonderful one. Her heart was warm, not cold. In fact, she excelled at thawing the most bitter conflicts, the most chilling glares of disappointment, and the snarkiest comments of criticism and displeasure. Her determination to find ways through the misunderstandings of human imperfections usually triumphed because my mother-in-law was blessed with a gorgeous superpower: Faith in Love. There is a big-hearted difference between believing in love and having faith in love. The former is often a hopeful, romantic thing while the latter requires hard work and great patience.

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The snow will rise to irresistible depths in the Massachusetts countryside when this newest, big blizzard winds down and I will go out walking or skiing through it. Last week, a storm blasted us just as we were creating a homemade service for my mother-in-law’s funeral.

I had gone walking through my gardens before that first storm, both to calm my sorrow and to search for plants I might want to put together into a seasonal bouquet for my mother-in-law’s service.

The Witch Hazel was blooming—I’d been painting a twig of it onto genuine vellum in watercolor through winter’s final days.

I found fragrant sprigs of Lavender, Sage, and Thyme and picked five sprays of the Sage, one for each of my mother-in-law’s five children.

I pruned branches from my Pear Tree. My mother-in-law had raised her family and lived her happiest years in a home on Pear Tree Drive in upstate New York.

I chose a branch from the Kousa Dogwood remembering how I had suggested that my in-laws should select a Kousa Dogwood for their last, new home. We drove all around town after they bought their final love nest, looking at Kousa Dogwoods growing in the gardens of neighboring houses.

I added branches from my Saucer Magnolia, a tree I grow in a memorial garden I designed for the memory of my baby son who died twenty-five years ago. The Saucer Magnolia was the one tree blooming in the gardens of the home where I lived when he died. My mother-in-law faithfully visited and decorated her grandson’s little grave every time she stopped to stay with us. Standing in my garden near the Magnolia tree, I had a sudden realization: When I became a mother for the first time, my mother-in-law became a grandmother for the first time. We were never the same after that day. Another memory, of something my mother-in-law said, came to me: “If you think you are beside yourself with happiness about your new baby, just wait until you have a grandchild.” My mother-in-law’s other superpower: Grandmother.

Blueberry branches, Redbud branches, Fothergilla branches, and Crabapple branches—I gathered a little bit of all of them.

I carefully selected a few branches from the Bonfire Peach Tree I planted in my garden when my father-in-law died almost six years ago. The Bonfire Peach is a showy, ornamental beauty for the garden because the pink spring blossoms are fluffy and profuse. Every year I pick the (usually neglected by most gardeners) little peaches and make one pie. The peaches are tart and it’s labor-intensive to make a pie from so many little fruits, but the pie is always a savory exclamation point to summer’s end.

Finally, I clipped branches from the Swamp Maple, a tree I fell in love with one year ago when I began to study it in springtime. The escape into my studies became a worthy distraction as my mother-in-law’s health continued to decline and she slipped further and further away into the mysterious and cruel afflictions of dementia. I felt gratitude for the Swamp Maples throughout that sad growing season. I know it sounds so corny to a lot of people to express love and appreciation for a tree, but people who believe such emotions are silly obviously have never had a tree come to their rescue.

The twigs, stems, and sprigs I gathered throughout my gardens before they were buried under the snowflakes of an epic New England nor-easter, were plunged into jars of warm water on a countertop in front of a window in my kitchen. I hoped to coax the buds to blossom early and make me happy by doing so.

Now I am watching as today’s snowflakes become lighter and more powdery. I love to trace their flights throughout my gardens, outside the windows of my home as I sit typing on my computer—a device my mother-in-law never learned to use.

The gardens, of course, are buried again.

Yet one of the crabapple buds upon a twig I clipped just last week has one flower beginning to unfurl. So I blow on it, as gently as a spring breeze, and watch as the dainty, precious flower blossoms. 🙂

Surely, these are the final snowstorms of our long winter. Soon, I will be taking my wounded heart onto favorite hiking trails and into local garden centers in search of something special to plant in my gardens for the memory of my mother-in-law.

A springtime sun will come shining through and I will get to work, healing my heart again and keeping the faith, in love.

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