“Ellen’s Garden” (FridayFlash)

“Ellen’s Garden” by P.J. Kaiser

Coming through the front door of her two-story suburban home, Ellen dropped her bag next to the door and went straight to the utility room to grab her gardening basket.

She shouted as she walked, “Hi, John!  Hi, Barbie!  I’m going out to do some gardening!  I’ll be back inside in a little while!”

Ellen’s husband John and her 13-year-old daughter Barbie stood in the kitchen and Ellen breezed past them to the back door.

John shouted after her, “How was your trip to the mall?  Did you get everything you need?”

“No – long story.  I’ll have to go back tomorrow.  See ya!” The door drifted closed behind Ellen as her hand wound tightly around the handle of her gardening basket; her knuckles turning white.  She strode across the deck, down the steps and across the grass to the far side of the lawn.

It had been two weeks since she had tended her roses and each time she looked out the back window, she felt a pang of guilt and swore that she would get out to take care of them soon.  Now she knew that her anger over the incident at the mall would prevent her from doing anything else and she saw it as a perfect time to tend her roses.

Her heart still racing and head still pounding, she pulled the pruning shears from her basket and began her work.  The events of the morning kept playing in her mind.  She knew that the coupon had not expired.  She should have known that the clerk was inept by the long line that had queued up at the register before Ellen chose her items and took her place in line.  The customers around her grew increasingly irate as one customer after another had some sort of issue with their sale.  The clerk had rung it up incorrectly.  The item was missing the correct bar coding.  They had to go back and exchange a size.  The delays were interminable and all Ellen wanted to do was buy her baby gifts and go back home.

By the time Ellen got to the head of the line, her hands were shaking she was so angry.  She had tossed her items onto the counter and held out the coupons for the clerk so that she wouldn’t make a mistake in ringing them up.  The clerk had to put on her bifocals to read the fine print on the coupon and finally determined that the coupon was not valid.  “What?” Ellen spat the words at her.  “I just received this in the mail three days ago – of course it’s still valid!  I want to see your manager.”  Ellen’s eyes bored into the clerk and the other customers groaned, knowing that their long wait had just been extended.

The other customers complained and ridiculed Ellen while they all waited for the manager to appear.  Some customers gave up and put their items back on the racks but most stayed in the queue and increased their complaints.  The manager finally came and, after inspecting Ellen’s coupon, made the determination that it was in fact invalid.  The jeers from the other customers and the anger at the clerk and her manager, topped by the frustration at not receiving the discount she had been counting on were all too much for Ellen.  She burst into tears and she remembered muttering something about never shopping at the store again and she quickly walked away, leaving the beautiful baby outfits she had chosen with such care lying on the counter.

She immediately went to the restroom to try to compose herself.  She stopped crying quickly but the anger still coursed through her body, leaving her gasping for breath with a throbbing headache.  She went back to her car and left the mall.  On the drive home, a car pulled out in front of her and her anger boiled over again and she had to pull over for a few moments to allow her hands to stop shaking enough to drive again.

Her heart was racing again as she replayed these scenes in her mind.  She heard the back door open and close and her head shot around to see her daughter coming out of the door.  “Mom?  Are you OK?” Barbie walked down the deck stairs and across the lawn.

“Yes, of course.  I’m OK.  I just had a run-in with a clerk at the mall over a coupon.”  Ellen looked down at her roses so that Barbie couldn’t see her face which she knew must be flushed with emotion.

“What happened?” Barbie chose a grassy spot a few feet away and sat down in the sunshine.

“Oh, it’s nothing.  I mixed up my coupons and took an old coupon with me by accident.  Have you noticed how lush these rose blooms are this year?”

“Yes, they’re beautiful.  Have you gotten rid of all the aphids finally?”

“Yes.  It took awhile, but I think the treatment finally worked.  And just think – we’ll get to enjoy these fantastic blooms again in the fall!”

Barbie sat up and peered at the blooms.  “I know you’ve told me the about this, but I forget why it blooms twice -”

Seizing the opportunity to talk about her roses, Ellen said, “These rose bushes belonged to my great grandmother.  They are a special variety of roses called ‘Autumn Damask’ and they bloom twice each year – once in the spring and once in the fall.   It’s one of the only old European roses to bloom more than once during the year.  The scent is strong and hasn’t been diluted by years of breeding.  My great grandmother originally bought eight rose bushes when she was newly married and her husband – my great grandfather – was just starting his medical practice.  They had no money and she had to scrimp and save for a year to be able to buy the bushes that she planted along the front of their tiny house.  Over the years, they grew and have been passed down through each generation of our family.  These three bushes are the only ones that remain.  Now look, these weeds will never give up!”  Ellen leaned forward and grasped a bundle of weed stems and pulled them out by their roots.  “I hate these weeds!  I’ve tried everything to get rid of them – treated mulch and weed killers.  They just keep coming back.”  Her heart began to pound again in anger as she looked down at the weeds.

Several of the thick green weeds had wound themselves around the bases of the rose bushes and Ellen tried to disentangle them.  Barbie said, “Your rose bushes keep having all these problems regardless of how much you love them.”

Ellen looked sideways at Barbie who was staring calmly at the rose bushes and gently nodding her head.  Thinking it a very strange thing for a girl to say, Ellen simply said, “Yes, I suppose so.”

After a few moments, Barbie said, “And those weeds keep growing regardless of how much you are angry at them.”

Ellen looked at her hand which held a handful of weeds.  “Yes, that’s true.”

“It seems that these plants are going to either live or die all on their own and they don’t really care whether you love them or hate them.”

“Yes, but if I didn’t love these rose bushes, then I would just let the weeds take over, wouldn’t I?  It’s my action that saves the bushes.”

Barbie said, “Maybe, but are you sure that they would die?  Maybe the roses and the weeds would find a way to live together.”

Ellen gazed at the delicate pink blossoms, each one made up of countless silken pink petals.  She inhaled the soft scent of the flowers and as she inhaled, she realized that maybe the sense of responsibility that she felt for them was misplaced.  And maybe her anger at the weeds was also misplaced.  Perhaps she should just let the roses be and enjoy them without feeling such guilt about their care.

*****

In the following weeks, the roses continued to bloom and Ellen continued to weed and prune them.  But some of the weeds got ahead of her and began to grow alongside the roses, sending their own delicate shoots towards the sky.  Before long, several varieties of wildflowers had scattered themselves among the delicate pink blossoms and a symphony of colors unfolded.  White, yellow, and orange wildflower blossoms against a background of dark green leaves and stems in combination with the roses made for a very inviting garden.

“A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it” – Dogen