Wow. It has been a good long time since I have sat down to write on this old blog. It isn't because I don't love it, but I have been super busy. There have been concerts, Pokemon Go, work, gardening, and prepping to go back to school.
Today I was picking tomatoes from my garden and thinking about my parents. Both of them are gone now and it breaks my heart on the daily, but I can't go back and change time. It just isn't possible. What I have loved about this summer has been these damn tomatoes. For years I could never grow them. They wouldn't come up from seed and if I bought plants they would give me one sad tomato or the animals would eat the flowers at night. I had decided that I was never going to grow them again, but then my parents passed away. Though they had not been together for over 30 years or more, they were both fantastic at growing tomatoes. I was envious of this talent. I can grow so many things, but why not tomatoes?
This year Chloe helped me plant everything. Over our seedlings we talked about when she was little and she helped her Nana in the garden and how she would let her sneak warm cherry tomatoes from the vine. I caught her doing this just yesterday and she always looks so happy when she is eating them. We also remembered our time with Grandpa Jim when, for a week, she helped him water the tomatoes every night just the two of them. I wanted to grow tomatoes this year for Chloe. I guess I wanted to grow them for me too.
Every day I am out there watering them, yelling at them for not standing up straight, thinking about my parents, and smiling in my heart at the fact that they actually came to fruit. It gives me time everyday to think of my parents in a good way, to not have such a heavy heart. As I write this, my little Tasty Treat tomatoes are on the dehydrator because there are so damn many they are coming out my ears. This way I will have them through the year for sauces and pasta dishes and sun-dried tomato pesto.
I had wanted to get a tattoo to tribute my love for my mom and dad. It has been hard trying to decide if I wanted something separate to honor them as individuals or something collective. I have decided on something simple. One cherry tomato...nice and red with its green leaves. It is something for the both of them. Something they both loved to grow. Something that gave them peace in their hearts when they were doing it.
Life is moving forward. I am sad still, but there is so much more in the world to see and do. As Pema Chodron said in a talk on fear and fearlessness:
"Every moment is fresh. You can never go back to the moment before."
Aleathia
