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Spring finally arrived, the weather was warming up and the trees and flowers were beginning to bloom. I moved my focus outside to the empty flowerbeds. My husband was gone on a trip somewhere so I went shopping for flowers and made that my weekend project to keep me occupied until I went back to work on Monday.
I bought a few perennials and some annuals but the one thing that tugged at my heart was one lone hydrangea bloom in a pot in Home Depot. It reminded me of home. My grandmother had a hydrangea growing on the north side of her house right by the window where we slept when we spent the night. I would study the cluster of blooms and want so badly to cut one. One cluster would make a perfect bouquet to carry around and pretend to be a fair maiden. ( I know...)
I wasn't even sure a hydrangea would grow in New Jersey, but I had to take it home. So I did- and I planted it in my flower bed with love and a lot of hope for it's future. That hydrangea grew larger and larger every year, and I eventually had to move it over in the flower bed because it was encroaching on the porch.
(the day I bought and planted it)
(a few weeks later after I finished planting everything in the flower bed)
We lived in base housing four and a half years until my husband got another assignment with another squadron on the same base. We were guaranteed another four years in New Jersey so we bought a house. We closed on the house January 31- the dead of winter- there was snow on the ground and it was bitterly cold. All of my plants were dormant but as we moved our stuff from one house to the other, I kept staring at my hydrangea- sad and lonely. It was sleeping for the winter- nothing but a pile of brown sticks waiting for spring. I just couldn't leave it behind and so my husband stood out in the bitter cold with a shovel and broke the frozen ground to dig it up. He planted it right beside my front door at the new house. We had no idea if it would survive such a traumatic move during the dead of winter, but it was placed by the front door, again, with love and hope for it's future.
That spring, green sprouts began to spring forth from the base of the plant. It grew and bloomed as if nothing had disturbed it at all. It continued to grow and bloom year after year until the fifth year in our house. I came home from an outing one day to find it gone. I literally felt sick to my stomach. My husband had been working in the yard and he proudly told me he had pruned it for me. For some reason, he thought I did that every year and he was trying to help. I started to cry and I told him that while I did prune off the dead branches, I did not cut it down every year- that was a rose you were supposed to cut back. He apologized profusely, but the damage was done. The rest of the fall and all that winter, every time I walked in our out the front door, I couldn't help but gape at the spot where my lovely hydrangea used to sit and feel the hollow feeling in my stomach each time. As soon as the first signs of spring arrived, I began to lovingly feed the stump where it had been and it came back! It grew almost to the size it had been before cutting it down although it did not flower that year. The following year, it flowered again and has ever since.
As we are preparing for our move overseas, I am suddenly aware that I cannot take it with me this time. I will have to leave it behind and hope it is well taken care of. I was a little mournful the other day thinking of leaving what feels like a part of the family behind after all we had been through together. Then I realized: that hydrangea is a great metaphor for the life of a military family.
We bloom where we are planted and just as we are really putting down roots and beginning to thrive and flower, we must uproot and move to another location. We set down roots in the new location and usually have a shaky start. We quickly establish our roots, meet new people and friends, nourish our hearts and souls with love and friendship and before long, we begin to flower. We grow, bloom and thrive wherever life takes us. Always maintaining faith in ourselves as a family, we take any environment and make it ideal for growth.
And so, it is with a heavy heart that my time in New Jersey is coming to an end. I am sad to leave our friends- that have become family- our community and our neighbors behind. I am sad to leave my sweet hydrangea behind. But I feel confident that, next spring, given a little love, it will bloom again.
As will we.
( I took this picture today- June 14, 2012)
