grief and your basic potted plant

i got a pot of impatiens last week. not that i don't have a planter, seeds and soil in the garage...but they're seeds. they need time to germinate and grow, and then eventually bloom. and it's almost july.

in minnesota, 1/3 of summer is dashing away. so starting plants from scratch just doesn't seem feasible.

henry stared at the patio with a tail the size of my grandma's rolling pin for a good half hour after i put the pot out there. the flowers are light lavender colored, some darker pink. it's just a nice spot of color. of course to him it's an interloper, and he was panicked and prepped for business.

i'm not sure why the flowers are called impatiens. i suppose i could search on google or something akin, but i'm just not up to the task today--i don't feel like reading latin plant names, or thinking of flora in general.

this week i'm remembering a few years ago, when my cat quinn died--died as impatiently as she lived, or perhaps as patiently. cats don't seem to be very patient creatures--at least my two, yowling in the morning when their canned food isn't on the floor as quick as they'd like. at the same time, i've seen shiva wait by my pillow for hours while i'm sleeping intermittently on a saturday morning, just for the stir of an eyelid.

i miss the smell of honey in between quinn's shoulder blades, the way she cuddled into your body, her little purr. i've got two new purrs in my house since then. i guess sometimes i'm just impatient to see my quinn again.

that said, i see her every day, in the graceful leaps and twirls of my other furry companions.

***

i had an attack of curiosity last week. suddenly just HAD to know what serena was doing now. i searched and found her site, read a little bit of it.

the thing that struck me was that it was just a brochure for a life--this is what i'm doing.

no feelings, no response beyond the shallow pool of necessary motions. at least not shared.

sharing things is what links you to another being--it's what i miss when i remember my cat, or my grandpa, or corey. i saw it yesterday when cari said she loved to drive, that she'd gotten that love of driving from her mom. it's the sharing of your burden, the sharing of another person's burden, the compassion and comprehension.

it annoys me, like a mosquito in a quiet summer bedroom, that serena doesn't seem to feel. or that she doesn't seem to share. or that she never shared, or that she did, and i didn't notice.

no one asks about her at work anymore. no one bothers me about what she's up to. it's somewhat of a relief, because i'm not constantly bombarded by the panic of not knowing how much to say.

i can be as curious as any National Enquirer reporter, and just as nosy. i know this, because if i'm honest with myself, i like to know these things about other people. i don't want to pry--i don't want to poke. but i don't mind knowing, either.

this impatient need to know--the burning desire to see if she missed anyone here--that is what caught me offguard. was it grief? do i grieve for someone who, at this point, i feel cared less about me than my cat?

***

right after the car accident, cari's dad was hospitalized and in serious condition, and she had to deal with that in addition to relatives and funerary rites. for a long time, she said she felt like she was in a bubble--her "god-bubble," she called it. protected her until she could deal with her own emotions, allowed her to function when she had to.

at some point we were on the phone, talking about the struggle of living without someone you care about. she was challenged daily to keep going, and not just sit down and cry.

i had an epiphany, at that point. i could remember the grief i felt, after corey died--how it would suddenly appear, lightning on a cloudless day.

"cari," i said. "i think grief is like gas."

"gas?" she asked.

"yes, gas. now go with me on this. when you have gas you're uncomfortable; you're perhaps afraid that you'll embarass yourself in a public place. sometimes you let fly and you really DO embarass yourself. but at the same time that you're ashamed, you're relieved a bit from the uncomfortable feeling from before."

"kim," she said, "you're the only person i know who would compare grief to methane, and make it work."

i feel often like i'm grieving for things that i am not sure i miss. i was ashamed that i just HAD to know what was going on with serena, in the same way that paparrazi peek into Brangelina's bassinet. and at the same time, the glimpse i got of her life was relief. as impatient as i was with myself for being so impatient, for not being able to let it go--i learned that i had to be patient with myself because this whole life thing is a process, and i certainly can't jump ahead of that process.

henry, now that he's over his initial terror of the white pot with bright blossoms, now sits and watches birds, just like he did before the flowers arrived: pressed into carpet, chittering at the birds as they pick at seed. patience where there was impatience; peace where there was grief.