The last one hangs at the top of my window. Its brown and dead now. The shape is perfect though. I had 5 of them. One by one, they never made it through all the moves and packing's of my life. Yet one made it through.
I am not sure how. Pure stubbornness of my grandmother I am sure. It came from her garden. From the bush at the front side of the house.
She used to lean over the porch and watch it. She would direct me where to pinch and where to cut. The love in her voice made it a wonderful activity. Pinch there honey, and cut that off. That Queen of the Hydrangea's will be bigger next year.
I couldn't imagine that it could be bigger than it already was, yet it showed me it could. I went down to my grandmothers every weekend. We would marvel at her green thumb, yet it was me who did all the touching and work. It's as if she sang to them at night, from the porch, and that was all the nourishment they all needed.
And the hydrangeas were the queens of it all. Towering and massive. We used to take pictures of the blossoms in our hands, laughing and smiling at how majestic they were. They were as big as your head,
she would say!
Today, for the first time since she has passed away, I have taken pictures of my own little bush. My own little hydrangea. The first I have dared grow on my own.
Today, I held them in my hands and thought of nothing but her. Looking up at my own porch wishing she was standing there with her black hair and wrinkled skin. That pink flower shirt she loved and those
dark rimmed glasses.
I walked in and looked at the dried fragile hydrangea pinned to the curtain on my window. It was the last one I picked before she died. I had a bouquet of them. That was the last. Today, I saw her face on my porch. I felt her love in my hands.
I laughed...they were as big as my head!
