Claire Reutter
In third grade, we were given the assignment to write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I had no idea, but I liked seeing my mom plant flowers.
I approached my teacher. “Um, Mrs. Walsh, What are those people called who take care of flowers?”
“Florists?”
Sounded good to me. I wrote down that I want to be an f-l-o-r-i-s-t. Well, I didn’t become that. In fact, I never did appreciate cut flowers. I mean, come on. They are separated from the soil, and then they die. But, in a sense, l did become a gardener, a miniature of my mom.
She planted more than zinnias and nasturtiums. In fact, she carried and nurtured 13 seeds that became her children. I was Number 7 of the Baker’s Dozen.
A late bloomer, I finally decided in my mid-30s that I wanted to grow my own garden. Well, sometimes the gardener gives it all She can but still things don’t go as planned. My husband and I struggled for a couple years with infertility, and then…I finally became pregnant! But three months in, a heart-breaking miscarriage followed.
After consulting with a renowned specialist, we decided on a drug called clomid. That didn’t work. What did help is a Shaman Woman who appeared to me in a dream at 3 a.m. in the Spring of 2001. She told me that “Now is the time.” I woke up my partner, and—well—he didn’t need any convincing.
Hooray! Another seed was planted. And nearly nine months later, it was ripe and ready to push through the crack to become a seedling.
The plan was to labor at home as long as possible, then transport ourselves to the hospital where the smiling midwife would assist me with the rest of the labor. The doctor would perfunctorily appear at the last minute and sign off on the birth. Yea-no, that didn’t happen.
What did happen is that my husband ended up delivering the baby in the relative comfort of our little log cabin in the Midwestern woods. He caught the Sprout, immediately brought it up to my chest, and then called 9-1-1.
When the EMTs finally arrived (after getting lost), they asked if we had a boy or girl. “Uh, we don’t know.” (We had other things on our mind.) Husband cut the cord. (It was a boy.) We went to the hospital, where they delivered the placenta.
We moved five months later, leaving behind trout lily, trillium, and waterleaf in the woods we called home. We replaced it with renewing and refreshing bird of paradise, bamboo, and ginger along with mouth watering mango, avocado, and guava.
Like that 8-year-old girl I once was, I still didn’t know what I wanted to be. Or at least I still didn’t know how to do it. But what I did know is that I would figure things out as I went along—how to grow this new garden of mine.
And I did.
Claire Reutter has lived in four corners of the U.S., and finds beauty in every location. Her life’s work is to be a helper, especially for the marginalized. cdsittinginatree@yahoo.com