The first time I met my neighbor, Mary, was in the backyard.

It was winter, grey and cold.

We talked over the fence and I found out that Mary and her husband Jeremy

had recently moved back to Ohio from Florida.

When I asked her why, she told me with a wink in her voice,

“I’m still trying to figure that out.”

Mary invited me to paint and drink wine a few months later and she told me more…

I’m an orphan.

My dad had a heart attack when I was 14. He was building our deck with a friend.

His name was Richard H. Graham and his favorite color was blue.

Dad was a carpenter and loved anything with peanut butter.

The smell of bacon bits and furniture stain make me think of him.

Initials are carved inside drawers and doors that live in my dining room.

Inside my jewelry box is his broken wedding band that saved him from the ax

he was using to chop down a tree at grandmas.

I miss his smiles and songs and zippidy-doo-das.

I was his babygirl and I hope he’s proud of me.

Mom died on Christmas day. It was her favorite time of year.

Debbie was her name and her favorite color was pink.

She made flower arrangements and ran a store with Dad called the Rose Cottage in Waynesville.

Mom had a million nicknames for me: Mary Jo, Mary Josephine (my middle name is Anjoli),

Little Mary Sunshine, and Angel.

When the doctors found cancer, we left Florida and moved back to Ohio to be with her.

We fought for two years, but when everyone else finally went home, I stayed.

Mom was able to share her last moment alone with me.

I miss mom’s daily phone calls and emails and the smell of paint and floral spray remind me of her.

I wish I could tell her how strong I thought she was.

I hope she’s proud of me.

I’ve lost most of my family and now I want to build a new one.

I want to be a mom too.

Since baby dolls and childhood I have always wanted to nurture.

If I had a child, I would tell them:

“I love you. I want you. I value and I need you.”

I would say to my baby, “you have completed us.”

Jeremy and I have been trying to have a baby for 5 years.

8 IUI’s, 1 IVF, multiple needle stabs, tests and surgeries have left us tired and wondering.

The doctors have no explanation and have diagnosed us with “unexplained infertility.”

I just want closure.

I want to get off the roller coaster ride.

The ups and downs of each month, each cycle, has left us windblown.

It feels like hope hurts more than letting go.

Mary and I wondered if documenting her mourning might actually be a part of her mourning.

Mourning the family she’s already lost.

Mourning the family she fears she’ll never have.

I don’t want pretty posed pictures with smiles and laughter because I don’t feel pretty, I don’t feel happy.

I am sad and angry and I want to move on with my life.

So we found our way to a giant oak tree in a field and brought flowers.

Yellow Roses.

When I was a teenager, all the boys at school

would buy roses for the girls on Valentines day and Sweetest day.

I never got one from a boy.

Instead, I got a dozen from Dad. 

When I got married, Mom used yellow roses to make my bouquet.

Now, Mary brings them roses.

She lays them down under a tree…

She hesitates.

She remembers.

And she walks away.

Wrapped in quiet resolve Mary finds herself under a tree.

And I find a scripture in the book of Job:

“At least there is hope for a tree:
    If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
    and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
    and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
    and put forth shoots like a plant.”

The roses were meant for Mary.

And though she has to let go of them, her parents don’t have to let go of her.

Because they are a part of her. They are the roots holding her up.

And the way she wants a child is the way she takes the rose.

Mary is loved and wanted and valued and needed.

She completed her parents lives.

And I think the reason she moved back to Ohio from Florida, right next door,

was for me to tell her that.