Butterfly Milkweed and Relationships

 

My older son and I planted a butterfly garden last year. He lined up pavers to segregate the perennials from the annuals and used river rock to design a centerpiece for the water dish, which all butterflies need. My husband bought metal art from a friend of ours, and he gifted them to me on Zane's birthday (butterflies that we staked in the ground). A beautiful friend in Massachusetts, who also lost her son, sent me a packet of butterfly milkweed. Those seeds were the first ones we planted. 

My son and I tilled the ground, planted a wide array of seeds, watered, and waited. The bachelor buttons bloomed first, creating an umbrella of shade over the milkweed as their leaves slowly came in. The annuals popped up quickly. There was an occasional four o'clock, which remained for a short time, and then wilted away. A cosmos here and there, but they didn't last long either. The majority of the perennials never sprouted. Soon, the bachelor buttons reached the end of their life, drying out beneath the scorching sun and temperatures of a Phoenician summer, giving the sunlight to the butterfly milkweed beneath. 

Through 100+-degree temps, water scarcity, and some neglect, these perennials endured--their pretty purple flowers sometimes the only color in the brown and crisped summer garden. Then the monsoon rains came, dousing them with water, reviving them. And finally, toward the end of summer, they've drawn butterflies, which is the whole reason we planted the garden in the first place. 

When it comes to grief, some people are like the annuals: they are there for a short time. They can give you sympathy at the beginning when death is still acute and raw. Others stay a bit longer like the bachelor buttons, but then they too fall away. And a number of family and friends cannot hang with you in your grief at all (much like the perennials that never broke ground). At some point in time, you have to stop staring at the empty or withered spaces and wishing for them to grow. Sometime you need to stop watering the dirt altogether in the hopes they'll one day show up. Instead, it's important to appreciate fully the butterfly milkweed; to appreciate the friends who stick with you through it all--through the hard stuff and the tears. 

They are the reason to keep nurturing a garden. 

At the same time, it's okay to let other flowers (other relationships) go.