- Author: Cheryl A Potts
December...gifts to buy, packages to wrap, blog to write, cards to send, tree to trim, cookies to bake, blog to write, stockings to hang, Carols to sing, bows to create, company to invite, blog to write, parties to attend, wreaths to make, Saginaw grandchildren's gifts to send, blog to write. Over and over in my head, all day and all night, the list never stopped. How was I to get to it all? And of course there is family coming for the Big Day, which would include Christmas eve, Christmas morning and Christmas afternoon meals, no, not meals, but feast. (Which wine should I serve with dessert?) Then of course there are all the appetizers and lots of healthy fudge, egg nog, and spiced nuts to munch on all day long that must be provided. So you see, my mind was not on anything pertaining to gardening during December, except the knowledge that I had a blog due. OMG!
I had no interest in anything gardening last month. The catalogs came as every year at this time, and they just found themselves stacked away for another day. How dare they attempt to interferer with my holiday. The closest thing I did to gardening was buy a poinsettia and knew I needed to research on how to keep it living past New Years, but no time this month.
Days ticked by, blog coming due. What should I write this month? But wait, I need to figure out my desserts for Christmas dinner. Blog due tomorrow. I'll get it done as soon as I finish getting these greens attached to my banister. Blog due today. I need to get my oven cleaned and refrigerator cleared before family arrives. Blog due yesterday.
And so it went, as did the big day and the meals and the sugar and the wine and egg nog and the tree. December over and no blog.
Now in the quiet of the new year, I have time to reflect on the real reason I did not write a December submission.
Deep down, I knew I wanted to write an article about my Frankie Tree. What, you might ask, is a Frankie Tree? Well, sit down here by the fire and I will tell you. I voluntarily cashier at Opportunity House's thrift store and over the years have made friends with a number of our regular customers. Fran* and Frankie* came in often. They were an older couple, not on their first marriage, very obviously in love and very devoted to each other. Frankie spent his time in the store talking up a blue streak to the staff, and Fran enjoyed buying books and various other collectables. As I got to know Fran, we discovered a mutual love for plants and gardens, and she would bring me seeds and starts and I would do the same for her. It was a special day that she brought me the beginning of a smoke tree (Cotinus coggygria) which I kept on my kitchen window sill for quite some time before it decided it wished to live no longer and went to tree heaven. Then one day as she was paying for her books, Fran informed me that Frankie had Alzheimer's. Frankie continue to come into the store on a regular basis, still talking a blue streak, but the streak was not as straight as it had been. His changes were obvious and the burden now in Fran's life was even more so.
The last day Fran and Frankie came into the store as a couple, Fran brought me another smoke tree sapling. "Hope this one takes," she said, and she informed me that Frankie would soon be going to a facility that took care of people with Alzheimer's, as she had reached her limit. At that moment, I decided to name my new plant after Frankie, so I would keep him in mind and send prayers and good wishes often. The plant has done remarkably well and is still growing upward on my window, but that is not the most amazing thing. Along with the tree, a fern like plant has voluntarily emerged in the same little pot-- a beautiful lacy green plant, developing new fronds every few days.
So what does this have to do with me not writing a blog? You see, I have not seen Fran for quite some time now, and I do not know how Frankie is doing, and I am afraid to ask. This causes a sadness I was not willing to face in December. And I do not know the name of the fern flourishing in my Frankie tree pot, and this makes me embarrassed as a Master Gardener. No time to do the research, but time to make the egg nog. Shame on me.
Bless you, Frankie, where ever and however you are.
* not their real names