It’s not what we wanted, but we’ll find a way to make it beautiful.
After a day of rumination, these were the words my dad said when I showed him that one of the trees in his yard was not looking good.
Tree Guy confirmed the worst. Not only was the Virginia Pine I’d pointed out dead, but its nearby companion was in trouble too. Both would have to come down. My folks had already lost six smaller pines out of their yard a few months ago to pine beetles. Now, these taller beauties were compromised too. It sneaked up on us, although the signs were there. Lichen. Pine sap. The sound of a woodpecker echoing across the yard. And then one day, I looked out from an upstairs window in my parents house and saw orange where there should have been evergreen.
My parents’ yard is more park than lawn—a handcrafted botanical garden that offers more shade in the summer than what you can hope to find on the rest of their block combined. If I imagine the trees as pieces on a chessboard, these two Virginia Pines, the tallest on the property, are King and Queen.
It’s an opportunity to make something beautiful, Dad says again.
We’re already grieving those trees. The silhouette and atmosphere of the yard will not be the same. But my dear father is a garden-artist. He has sculpted and shaped his yard into a paradise of leafy rooms and winding paths and a cascading succession of blooms that last nearly all year long. (When killing frost takes the last roses, the yard rests for a few scant weeks before hellebore, camellia, and crocus appear.)
Dad started working almost immediately—reshaping paths and pruning bushes to make room for new plantings. I can’t see what he envisions. I haven’t learned to think in garden yet. But I know he will work with the difficult thing until beauty surfaces.
This is what artists do. They engage with everything life delivers, wanted or not, and transform it through art. Perhaps garden-artists understand this better than anyone else since their medium changes with the seasons and weather, with the creatures that make the yard their home. Their work is never in stasis, but an ever-going process of adapting, upturning, pruning, and propagating.
New plantings won’t negate the loss of my parents’ regal Virginia Pines. The yard will feel strange, bereft. And when you work in a medium of things-that-grow, beauty takes time. But even anticipated beauty will mitigate the sting.
I’m learning it again and again. The medicine is in the creative work itself. Using familiar tools and honed skills will bring comfort in trying times. The process of making art will create a safe place for the grief to go.
Noelle Beverly writes poetry and prose, supports local writers in the surrounding community, and is a member of the BACCA Literary group. Photo by the author.
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