Sitting on my back porch I gaze into the field with grass growing tall. The wind is blowing strong enough to move the grass in waves diagonally from left to right, as the sun is setting to the back of the field. It all fades to a blur as my mind drifts away.
She was just here. Sometimes it feels as if it was a few minutes ago. Other times it feels like it has been a hundred years.
She was riding through the field picking flowers that day. As I walked toward her, I saw her leaning over and thought she was falling out of her power wheelchair, so I started running to help her up. Then I saw her pull herself to an upright position. She moved the chair three feet and leaned over again. Now I could see that she was in control and trying to grab something from the ground.
Reaching her, I asked what she was doing. She said, “I’m cutting flowers.” She was! Her lap was overflowing with wild daisies. The field was full of them, and she was cutting as many as possible.
It must have been painful for her bending at the waist while the seatbelt of the chair tried to cut her in half. I wanted to stop her and tried to, but she was having none of my pleading to help or take over the work. She just ignored me and proceeded with her mission. So, I took a step back and watched as her stubborn determination propelled her on.
Determination was her hallmark. Often in a conversation I would tell someone, “I have the most stubborn wife…” I just wanted to get their reaction before I finished telling them about her. After I was scolded or received “the look”, I would finish. “That’s a compliment. She has MS, and if she wasn’t so stubborn and determined, she would have given up years ago.”
Her determined flower cutting in the back field was nothing new, but it had been a long time since I had seen that level of determination in her. Now, the determined look also held a tinge of anguish.
Sitting on the back porch with blurred eyes a few days ago, my mind could see the daisy-cutting event again. Today, I can blend my memories with everything I know now, but which I couldn’t see that day.
The weeks and months leading up to the daisy day were marked with her getting weaker little by little and stride by stride. Three surgeries in the previous year followed by difficult recoveries had weakened her substantially. While I knew that, I was oblivious to the big picture. I could see the daily struggles – wins and losses – but I must have somehow not allowed myself to see that she was weakening more overall.
She could see it. I guess she felt it or sensed it. She didn’t talk to me about it. She talked to her best friend Angee some, but it was coded or discussed with “when the day comes….” She took the opportunity to use that same line on me one day. “When I am gone, I want you to get married again,” she said.
I responded as any husband who has had this discussion previously would have – “okay”.
I expected her to move on as she always had in the past, but not this time. “No,” she demanded my full attention. I looked at her. She started again. “When I am gone, I want you to get married again. Promise me!”
“Yes, I promise,” flowed out to satisfy her. But something felt weird.
The same weird feeling was there on that flower cutting day, and it slowly came on more and more as the day proceeded. In the house after cutting the daisies, she methodically selected each flower based on the length and look of that daisy and placed them in the vases. Finally, she loaded all of the vases in our van before driving her power chair up in the van and locking it in for a ride.
Her exhaustion was evident as I sat in the driver’s seat beside her. Somehow, she directed me to each person’s house where she would give her friends the flowers with her signature beaming smile. None of them knew the sacrifice she had made cutting each individual flower, nor the utter fatigue she was experiencing at that moment. I didn’t even recognize it myself.
It was, in fact, her swan song, her parting gift to her friends. A sacrifice of love – the gift that she gave her whole life. She was a gift of love to everyone who came in contact with her.
What she had been trying to convey, without saying it, was that her time was short. She somehow knew it was coming, but never told me directly. And I – I guess I just could not see it until now… Staring at the blur of nothing in the back field where she cut the daisies that day.
Today, she has been gone for two years. She lives in heaven, worshiping the Lord who loved her first and most. We all love you Pam!
I love reading your work, especially the stories about Pam. I can see her face, her smile and easily see that look of determination that was ever present. She was a wonderful woman. The Lord has rewarded you twice. I feel sure finding Tammie was a gift for all the love and faithful support that you gave to Pam.
Thank you for sharing!