“Dear Norman…

Thank you for planting perennials….All my Love, Rachel”

 

I had no idea when I finally took the plunge to launch Heart of a Sojourner that I was on the brink of a season that would require that I be so fully present to our journey with my husband’s brain cancer that I would not have the time, much less the emotional energy, to invest in writing a blog in addition to managing the Facebook page that updated our support network. Now, in the wake of Norman’s passing, I find myself in completely new territory, and the road ahead is so very hard and painful to imagine. I’m sure the posts will come slowly, and probably in fits and starts, and may be more for my benefit than yours for a while. Today, it just felt important to me to share a piece of my heart about the kind of man my husband was.

On the afternoon of June 4, I knelt by my husband, Norman, the love of my life, as he drew his last breath. Every single hour of every single day, I ache for him. He is gone, but he is all around me. He went to great effort to make sure I would feel his presence and his love in very tangible ways.

Norman loved landscaping. He loved digging, planting, fertilizing, pruning. All of it. Even after his diagnosis with glioblastoma brain cancer, he pushed his body to its limits working in the yard. In the final months of his life, he kept ordering plants, mapping out where they would go, and overseeing the work he could no longer do. One beautiful early spring day, dear friends came to help plant. He had trees, lilacs (my favorite), and lemongrass to ward off mosquitoes, ready to go in the ground. Norman could only walk with assistance, but still insisted on being maneuvered around the yard so he could participate. As he struggled to walk and talk, we all knew his time was short, but we had no idea how short.

That afternoon I felt so sad, and more than a little overwhelmed. We have five acres of rambling property that always needs a whole host of things done to maintain it. I wanted to be fully present to the work that brought him so much satisfaction, but I was bogged down by anxiety about what the future would hold for him, for us, and for me without him. Tears that burned behind my sunglasses were discreetly wiped away by dirt covered gardening gloves, and my chest felt tight as I choked back feelings that could not be articulated.

As we planted, I noticed a few tulips were starting to peek out, but I had forgotten how beautiful it would soon become. Norman was all about perennials. He was practical like that. Perennials bloom year after year. They are economical; they pay you back for your efforts, and sometimes they spread and fill in the blank spaces around them. He had a strategy that involved planting things together that would bloom successively, and that meant being the kind of gardener that plans ahead and patiently invests in what is yet unseen. That was my guy.

My once strong husband leaned hard on his friend and watched him plant things that he knew he would never see grow to maturity. Norman knew he was a sojourner, and that his stay in his temporary earthly abode was coming to an end. He lived fully in the present, but invested selflessly in the years to come. He planned for the future, whether he would be around to enjoy the blooms or not. This mindset was not limited to his penchant for working in the soil. He lived his whole life the way he landscaped. He was strategic and optimistic. He planned and invested his time, effort, finances, and hard won wisdom in people and things that he thought would matter in the long run. Even when it would be easier to not get his hands dirty, so to speak, he dug in. He did the hard work of “weeding” as a parent as well as intentionally creating memories to last a lifetime. He nourished the soil of our marriage with tenderness. When he could barely speak, he still struggled to utter words of gratitude, love and affection. It mattered tremendously to him that the way he lived with cancer would be a source of strength, faith and courage for others in the face of suffering. Norman never used his prognosis as a justification for neglecting the spiritual seeds planted in his heart; he kept on seeking God, and when he could no longer read or attend to teaching, he asked for hymns to be sung and played for him.

In the weeks leading up to Norman’s passing, and even more-so since then, my yard has exploded with color. Tall exotic looking lilies shot up unexpectedly in front of the house. I think there were a few last year, but he must have loved them, because many more were planted when I was unaware. Lilacs in bloom make the breezes fragrant. Outside our bedroom window, the plot we dubbed “Hosta Hill” is indeed blanketed with a variety of giant hostas in every shade of green as well as a plethora of flowers to please the bees and the butterflies. Every morning when I open the blinds to face a new day, they greet me with the reminder of how Norman’s love created a swath a beauty all around, not only in our yard, but even more-so in our lives, and I’m deeply grateful for every way he was devoted to “planting” with our future in mind. I pray we ourselves honor him and our God by blooming well.

Until we meet again, my love.