Many Miles Between Here and There

I didn't note any progress or regression in my mother's cancer or her treatments today over the span of ten years. Sometimes I just had to walk away to gain some perspective. But I did note an interesting pattern to my posts. On this day for several years in a row between 2014 and 2019, I returned home to Kentucky after spending time with Dad over the holidays in Virginia.

Taking care of my father between those years is another story, so I'll save most of those details for later. The distance I traveled between 2015 (after my spouse died) and 2020 (when my father died) added up over the years, though, and that is a point of interest for now.

I'm fortunate that my little black 2014 Chevy Cruze LT, which I purchased after my husband died, made all those trips without major issues. We'll not count the time a buck charged at my car outside Beckley, West Virginia, in 2015 with my daughter and infant grandson in the car. It was rutting season, after all. We all were fine, and the Chevy braved it.

The one-way mileage between where I live and where my parents lived equals about 750 miles, or about eight hours. That's 1,500 miles per visit, which is why most visits were extended ones. Of course, I became very bored with traveling the interstate time and again, so I took back roads sometimes. I will never do that again when driving alone, because I saw so much beauty in the Appalachian mountains, and I couldn't stop, because--you know--a single woman traveling alone...

Back roads also added to the mileage. So, I often kept to the interstate along with a book on disc. I kept measure of my time on the road by the towns I passed on my way, the roadside oddities, such as iron bridges spanning the interstate and log cabins off in mowed fields, and by pit stops. I tried to make only two restroom stops, one at the halfway mark, and one when I left the interstate to travel the mountain road into Lynchburg. One never knows how long that leg of the trip might take. It would depend upon any slow drivers or 16-wheelers in front of me.

Plus, I would always stop in Clifton Forge to visit with my father's brother. He passed this last year, so I won't need to make that trip unless I wanted to visit the cemetery. I guess that's a mandatory thing, so I'll see that gas station above at least one more time, I guess. The photo is one I took in 2019 in a pit stop outside Clifton Forge. It was the one time I didn't stop to see my uncle. I had bad feelings on that trip, and they came to a head at this stop, which is why I took the photo. I didn't know what was going on with me then, but I have a good idea now. Sometimes we do have premonitions.

At times I long to take that trip again. I would have a reason, as I still have an aunt and cousin in Virginia. I learned this past year that I have many more cousins, thanks to DNA testing, and they all want to meet up the next time I return. I wonder if I can take someone with me.

The Master Gardener

One of the reasons I'm returning to the folks' house this weekend is to help sort out mom's landscaping. Mom's work on the yards surrounding the homes they lived in over the years was the main reason their homes sold so quickly. She honed her skills in South Carolina at Clemson, where she took classes and was awarded with a Master Gardener certification.

When the buyer walked up to the front door of that house to look around, dad opened the door and the buyer looked at my dad and said, "SOLD." He was so impressed with the work around the house that the house mattered little.

I can never hope to be the gardener my mother was. For one thing, I'm too wishy-washy. I would leave a plant in the ground, not wanting to disturb it, and it would be swallowed by the plant next to it. Mom, on the other hand, was efficiently brutal. I remember watching her pull weeds for the first time -- I was startled by the ferocity she displayed in uprooting anything that didn't fit into her scheme.

That scene brings up so much garbage that it's difficult to sort through all the implications.

That said, I was proud to introduce my mother to various plants, and I gave her some of mine over the years. The lamb's ears that I provided needs to be separated. The helliobore needs to be moved to a shadier location. Her bulbs all need to be dug up and separated. I have plans, and I hope none of this work takes too much time or effort.

Mom couldn't get into her gardens during the last two years of her life. In spring of 2013, she was too sick, and the bulbs needed separating even then. This past spring, she ordered me to take her to the garden shop, where she purchased garden clogs, gloves, some new tools, and other odds and ends. When she died, those items were still in the garage, all sporting their price tags. She had no energy for the work, and she totally lost interest during the last two months of her life. Even the height of the grass or the deer munching on her ground covers didn't seem to bother her, topics that would constantly spark heated discussions between my parents in the past.

I have no qualms about using mom's garden tools. I've already made them mine. My concern is about saving her plans and her work so dad can use her skills to sell the house when it comes time. Why am I doing this? Because it's in all our best interests.

So say the daffodils, those poor squashed-together bulbous entities that I can hear talking to me from two states away.

** The photo is one I took in 2013, showing the bane of my mother's life -- the deer that would snack on my mother's gardens with impunity. They would eat even those plants that were considered "deer resistant."