Inexplicable Sorrow, Unexpected Pleasures

I didn’t put in a garden this year. “Garden” is probably a misnomer, as mine is limited to whatever I can fit on the fire escape. One year it was heirloom tomatoes and basil, and the tomatoes were so delicious I tried it again the following year. The squirrels found the tomatoes to be irresistible and peed in the basil. The next year I put in pots of petunias and did so every year until now.

Petunias grow well on my fire escape, which faces south and gets sun for the better part of the day. The brick walls hold onto heat and it’s not unusual for a petunia or two to bloom in December or until the first measurable snowfall.

I had a thesis to finish this May and some traveling to do in the latter weeks of the month. Memorial Day was cool and un-summerlike. My cat took a turn for the worse. Each day I thought about going to the garden store for soil and some flats of flowers and didn’t.

My cat Beachamp died last week. He’d been on medication for a chronic condition for more than a year and the prognosis wasn’t good. He’d had a happy life and I wanted his death to be a reflection of that life, of his stoicism and his dignity. He was a comfort and a joy.

A door shuts, another opens. Last week I was vacuuming in my office, the fire escape room, when I noticed a single petunia poking up and out of what I had mistaken for weeds. After days of rain, the sun came out and the flower opened, the first of many blooming from seedlings. All of them are white, except for the pink one you see in the picture above.

I want to think that’s Beauchamp: Still flowering. Still here.