What the ground holds
I just used the big, man-sized shovel to bury the roots of a cherry blossom tree. It’s really a twig, to be clear, with a few miniature leaves giving it a suggestion of life, future life. It may, one day, raise gnarled branches covered in pink confetti above the yard. Or maybe it will dry out and stay a twig. Trees don’t always take, and God knows I am no gardener. Still, I hope one day to see it bloom.
I told Joshua when he was digging the holes, “remember, these grow to be 40 or 50 feet!”
“We’ll be long gone by then,” he replied sensibly. “… in the ground.”
I’m sure the tree roots are the best things I’ve put in the ground in the past three years. I’ve used a man sized shovel at three funerals, most recently my dad’s. The sound of the metal into the pile of dirt is the same, no matter what you’re burying. I am toying with the idea of burying my black, anti-wrinkle dress that I had in my suitcase the month before my Grandma died and the day I drove from Atlanta to DC to see dad for the last time.
Or maybe I’lll decorate the grove with the broken shards of the dishes Brett bought me for our 10th anniversary, sunk into the soil. They are beautifully colored Bauer pottery (more authentic than Fiestaware, I was assured, but the same palate). Tiffani helped him pick them out for me in shades of sunshine, poppy, and lime. While lovely, the dishes crack and chip in the dishwasher. And they each weigh about two pounds. I think my refusal to hand wash our everyday dishes contributed to Brett’s disdain for me (and probably Tiffani’s, come to think of it). How beautiful they would be smashed on the white driveway, or the blacktop of my dead-end street, with the larger pieces set into the dirt like icicle stepping stones, the smaller slivers washed away by rain.
The little “grove” is for dad, because when I was a girl, he would take me to see the Japanese Cherry Blossoms that lined the Tidal Basin near the National Mall. He was giving me his city. When I told my sister my plan she said, “Funny, to honor him with cherry blossoms. Every year in April, he’d say, ‘I can barely get to my office because of the fucking Cherry Blossom festival.’” Perhaps leaving home when I was 18 lets me remember things differently, because to me, he was a Blossom lover. My sister knew him too well to romanticize.
In May, we’ll set the plaque at my dad’s grave. Actually, it’s already there, but we haven’t had the traditional Jewish “unveiling.” It was there when I visited in April, but I just couldn’t go. I suppose it says something like Jonathan Samuel Sokolov, Loving Husband and Father, 1947-2010. It’s that last part I can’t bear to see—that final date. Maybe I’ll keep my eyes on the magnolia tree that shades him in the ground. I bet it will be blooming by then.
