Gardeners of the Heart
a memoir of love lost
I’m a poet, through and through, perhaps by destiny, or maybe as a coping mechanism, or it could be it’s just the way I think, the way I breathe life in and out of me. I just don’t understand life sometimes, unless I capture it in words and imagery, in poetry or song.
Not many live as I do, see as I do, believe as I do, or behave as I do, which does not make me either special or wrong, I suppose. I am young, perhaps 25 or 27, and (yes, I do not know for sure), and I have, thus far, lived a life of many terrible endings and an equal number of reluctant beginnings. My spiritual faith both sustains and challenges me, most often asking too much of me and giving back too little until I am absolutely desperate.
I will focus on the recent past me, yet it is a metaphor in many ways of the “all of me”. As a young adult, perhaps 18, I found myself in yet another world that was new. Behind me was a childhood world of abandonment, enslavement, abuse, and pain, then a second adolescent world of an adoptive family and school… and endless bullying for being different than I should have been. In my latest new beginning, after those other lives, I suddenly found myself free and mostly alone, and not feeling wanted much by my new family (my Uncle, Aunt, and cousins).
I understand. Night terrors are not an endearing quality, nor introspection, nor spending most of my free time (when I wasn’t working 4 part-time jobs) writing poetry while sitting on the roof or hiding in the woods. I knew that maybe I should have tried harder to fit in, but I just couldn’t. And I never really learned how to make friends in school, mostly because nobody talked to me (except the harassing boys who knew something of my history). Even my sister and I drifted apart at that time. I drifted apart from myself in some ways, too.
Can’t get along with me
I’m not on good speaking terms with myself today, I don’t listen to me, I don’t do what I ask… I’m much too distracted and too foolish. Sometimes I think I didn’t raise myself properly. — — — originally from “Under forgotten skies” by Anneliese Dahl (no longer available on Amazon)
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I saved my money so I could move out on my own, which I did as soon as I finished high school. I rented the tiniest little house on the outskirts of our little town. She was an ugly little house, needing paint and some fixing up, but I got a good deal on her because she was just a little old cottage in the back property of the landlord’s house, kind of hidden. I spent all my time being lonely and depressed and sleepless, but I enjoyed planting in my pretty little garden, with lots of white flowers. It was my time of hiding from the world, and I only went out when I needed to work or buy food
I’m awake, exhausted in dire thoughts and rake one hand through tousled hair. No food, no coffee, nobody here, and the mirror is cold, not yet kind. Beauty can wait, concealed beneath layers of shades, cap, and bulky clothes. But the hungry creature must be fed. — — — originally from “Under forgotten skies” by Anneliese Dahl (no longer available on Amazon)
I went to work on Friday, the afternoon shift at the shoe store in the mall, on the outskirts of town just a two-mile walk from my house. It was quiet because not too many people buy shoes on a Friday night, but the mall was pretty busy, full of school kids just looking for things to do. Not much else to do in this tiny town.
When Johnny came into the shoe store, my first instinct was to be afraid, to run. He was in his military fatigues, and I still fear almost anybody in uniform, even the UPS man. I experienced too many bad people in uniform when I was on the streets with my sister Dora. But he was young and handsome, and very polite in requesting help at the counter. They pointed over to me.
I don’t know what I loved more, the way his eyes beckoned me, or the way his words teased me when he asked me questions. Maybe it was when he didn’t know I was watching him so carefully…until he did.
We talked a lot while he was trying on shoes, and he was so kind and respectful, always waiting patiently for me to speak, listening even though I spoke so quietly.
“My name’s, Johnny,” he said, taking my hand.
“I’m Annie,” I answered, feeling the blush coming.
“Would you like to go out with me, Annie? Tonight?” he asked. “I’m a nice guy, I promise, and I’d just like to take you to a movie or something. Maybe a little dinner?”
My plans before he came along were basically, wine … me … and song, and dancing with my imagination with the hopes that she would behave herself and not get me too drunk, which I didn’t like to do.
God’s Thunder
I couldn’t pretend nothing mattered when my heart beat loud as God’s thunder. His eyes were true deep eyes of blue that weakened my knees and wakened the heart in me wanting to just touch his face. The bright light of him inside, outside, was my unknown prayer heard and answered. — — — originally from “Under forgotten skies” by Anneliese Dahl (no longer available on Amazon)
“OK, Johnny. I’m off at 8.” I smiled and blushed as he took my hand again gently, briefly. I laced up his boots for him. I don’t know why I said yes. I was terrified and I never felt I could trust anyone, but … I just don’t know.
“OK then. I’ll be back then… in my civilian clothes, don’t worry.”
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We dated for a few weeks, just going to dinner and movies, and once to the terrible town zoo. It was easy to be with him, and days felt like forever, but also like just short moments that passed so terribly fast. It wasn’t until we went on a small hike in the woods that we first made love, after walking through a golden field into a little-visited part of the forest with a beautiful great oak. He saw I was terrified but desirous, and we took our time. I didn’t hurt like I expected, like I remembered. I had never known such gentleness and kindness like that before.
After that, we were inseparable. He was working just for a little while at the army recruiting station and living at Autumn Tree apartments nearby, and we spent all our time together, just talking or at dinners, or movies, or going to the shore when we could afford a motel.
After six months or so, it was Johnny’s birthday, so I worked some extra hours and saved up all my money to buy him a nice gift, a beautiful second-hand leather jacket I saw him look at once. I gave him a poem with it, to make him smile.
Make you happy
Today I will be the fool, I’m young after all, and we do stupid things. I will waste my money on a big, big gift for you that I can’t really afford because I can make you so, so happy today. But you may need to buy me dinner. — — — originally from “Under forgotten skies” by Anneliese Dahl (no longer available on Amazon)
At dinner, Johnny asked me to marry him. He’d saved up and bought a ring and everything, and I was so happy and frightened. And then I thought more deeply and became even more frightened until I wept and said no. And I told him I couldn’t see him anymore.
“Annie, Annie… we don’t have to get married,” he protested. He was near tears himself. “Please Annie, just talk to me. But you don’t have to marry me. We can just be as we are.”
Stupidly I hadn’t thought about my past and how it would affect him. In all this time, I hadn’t told him hardly anything important about me, I guess expecting that he was going to leave me anyway. I hadn’t told him of my troubled childhood on the streets. How long would it be before someone on the streets called me a whore in front of him because they had heard about my past? And I never told him I couldn’t have children, because some men brutally hurt me.
If I told him, I expected him to leave me. If I just married him, and he found out later, he would probably leave me. And if he didn’t leave me, his parents would be upset because they would not have grandchildren, and he’d be forced to leave me. If I broke up with him, the same thing … we’d be over.
It seemed like a year, but it was only a week or two, Johnny calling me every day, me crying and apologizing and hanging up. I prayed and wept in a timeless abyss of loss. In time, I found enough clarity of mind to realize that I couldn’t let fear make me give up on my life. It was better to give Johnny the choice and to face the devastating rejection if I must. If I didn’t look him in the eyes, at least, I would not have the memory of his disappointment and anger haunting me for the rest of my life. I wasn’t sure if I could still find the will to live if I saw his eyes rejecting me.
It’s all a blur to me now, that moment when we met, when he came to my little ugly house and sat with me in the garden. I couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t see through the tears, and my heart pounded so much I felt I was dying. I didn’t look at him.
I talked and don’t know what I said, but I said everything, and he never let go of my hand though I tried half-heartedly to pull it away. I remember thinking that I did not want to ruin his life by being in it. Finally exhausted and near collapse, I found myself in his arms with my hands over my ears in fear.
“I’m not going anywhere, Annie. I’ll have you in any way you like, but I want to marry you. These other things matter a lot to you, so they are important to me, too, but they don’t change anything of how I feel.” This is what Johnny finally was able to tell me.
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I loved the mornings, out in our little rose garden, next to the tall, broad apple tree, sitting in the golden glory of the ripening summer sun. Johnny was always with me, but he didn’t like gardening, the bent-back weeding, and fending off the bugs. He loved me, though, and he got his hands dirty for me.
I am too soft-hearted, and needed a soldier to pull the sweet weeds. Just because of their stout stems and spikey leaves and tiny dull flowers, nobody appreciates that they may have an inner beauty as great as the the flowers. I think the bees, like I do, see their beauty, so I always had him pull just the biggest ones, in our overgrown garden, only the ones that choked my white roses. I needed to look away at those times, and I tried to keep my eyes from watering so he didn’t think me foolish.
One day when we were done in the garden, Johnny brought me an apple from the tree, polished for me using the T-shirt that he left on the garden fence. I had to admire his soldier’s physique, wrapping myself around him for a kiss, before I accepted his apple.
“Shouldn’t I be giving you the apple?” I laughed, taking the apple and reciting poetry.
Eve’s Call
Come to me, my love, and seek Eden in my lips, and if you taste the sweet apple in my mouth, on my tongue, we can fall in love again and again and find our souls together east of our beautiful garden. — — — originally from “Under forgotten skies” by Anneliese Dahl (no longer available on Amazon)
“I like that,” he smiled. “But if we’re in Eden, shouldn’t we be naked?”
“Yes, later,” I kissed him with as much promise as I could give. “But with what I think you have in mind, sir, and eating apples, we probably won’t be allowed back in the garden anymore.”
“Oh, that would be terrible,” he laughed.
We were gardeners, we were, for each other’s hearts and souls, and we made each other bloom like never before. Dora told me this, my little sister. She was a junior in high school, and not very happy at home with Uncle Al and Auntie Beth and their kids, so she came here a lot, too, to our terrible little house.
“I can’t believe you two found each other,” Dora always told me.
“There has to be something good that comes from selling shoes for a living,” I replied, laughing. “It’s certainly not the money.”
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Things happen, as things do, and our time together was tragically cut short when Johnny died on a peacekeeping mission in the Middle East. It was all my fault that he was there, that he stayed for the extra tour that killed him, and that’s something that I must live with. Yet I know he forgave me before he died. You can read this in Annie’s Story, if you are curious and wish to cry for me.
When I occasionally get past the devastation of that loss, I can look back upon our time together as the greatest gift I’ve ever received in life. I can only choose, as best I can, to make this time with Johnny in my life much more important than the effect of his loss. He brought me back to life.
I will see him again someday, I know.
Originally published at https://vocal.media.
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