Family Garden – Page 3 – Cynthia Reyes

A Good Home, Book lovers, Books, Daughters, elderly Parents, Family, Family Matriarch, Family Stories, Gardening Books, Gardens, Great books, Home

Vivian Shapiro, a Woman Who Loves Books

June 25, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

The little girls in this photo are Vivian, on the right, and her sister Roslyn.

Their childhood home had a vast library and Vivian loved reading books.

Classics for Junior Readers, the eleven volumes of The Foundation Library for Young People and the family’s encyclopedia were among her childhood favorites.

“My father was a very accomplished man (lawyer, Member of Parliament for Ontario, the founder and first President of the Mt. Sinai Hospital, first violinist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra) and he always encouraged my reading and learning as a child.

“So reading was something I always did.”

Vivian was so bright that she skipped grades in school.

She graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor of household science degree and worked as a dietitian till shortly after her marriage. She and her husband Bud had three daughters.

Daughter Arna, a retired English teacher and now a writer and proofreader, read A Good Home and gave a copy to her mother.

“When I asked my Mom how she liked the book, she said it was one of the best she had ever read! And considering she had been reading for a good 90 years, that would be a lot of books!”

I gulped with delight and asked: “Why?”

Vivian replied: “I can picture all of her houses – her descriptions are so vivid. I can still see the house up on a hill. It brought back memories of travelling in the Caribbean and different stages of my life.”

Vivian and Bud on their 70th anniversary

“Two of the best things about books are that we can travel to different times and places through them, and we can learn something new with each one.”

Vivian, Arna and granddaughter at 96th birthday party — Vivian at 96th birthday party with daughter Arna and granddaughter Heather

Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is still one of Vivian’s all-time favorites.

Bud died a few years ago. At 96, and no longer able to walk, Vivian spends much of her time in her room. Reading, she says, is “a wonderful diversion at this stage of life when outings and new experiences are limited.”

While Arna was proofreading the manuscript for my second book (Beloved Gardens) she asked my permission to read the book to her mother. Of course, I agreed.

Arna reported:

“It gives me great pleasure to look at my Mom sitting in her wheelchair with a big smile on her face. Or sometimes she nods her agreement to whatever Cynthia wrote.

“Sometimes she closes her eyes (still smiling) and I know that she is visualizing the scene. When I told her that the finished book would include lovely photos, she said that it didn’t really need pictures as she could see everything clearly just from the words. The book takes her on a journey in her mind.”

“These are the kind of books you can read over and over again,” says Vivian. “They make you smile and they make you cry. Because the book is so picturesque, I can think back and the memories are lovely.”

And you are the kind of reader authors love, Vivian! Thank you most kindly for loving books, including mine.

A Good Home, Family, Family Matriarch, Gardening, Gratitude, Home, Inspiration, Life in canada, Lifestyle, Mothering, Mothers, Non-fiction writing, Parents, Raising Children, Relationships, Spring Bulbs, Thanks, Tulips

Mother’s Day in the Garden

May 11, 2014May 12, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

One garden here at the old farmhouse is extra-special.

Partly shaded by a large red maple, it has two dogwood trees, two purple lilacs, a Japanese maple and a forsythia shrub. The Japanese maple was stuck there “temporarily” but was somehow forgotten and has outgrown its spot.

“One of these days, I’ll have to move it,” my husband says. But that tree is so big now that I suspect it’s not going anywhere.

Hydrangea shrubs and tree peonies also flourish here.

In front of them are smaller plants: Solomon’s seal; ferns; the intriguingly shaped “Jack-in the Pulpit”; the occasional trillium (Ontario’s official flower); may apples and another woodland plant whose name I never learned.

Pink tulips come up every spring, as do daffodils, astilbe, and hosta. It’s the only garden bed that’s home to such a variety of characters: woodland, shade, and sun-loving plants.

No wonder it’s called “Mama’s Garden”. The children she mothered are a variety of characters too.

Throughout the spring, pink lamium borders one side of Mama’s Garden, while blue forget-me-nots border the other. Recently, though, they’ve both strayed into the path.

“Your garden would look better if I could weed the path regularly”, I apologize to Mama.

And I can hear her voice saying: “Ah, m’dear. It’ll get done. Right now, there are more important things on your plate.”

My husband named the garden in tribute to Mama’s great love of gardening.

My mother died several years ago.

On every Mother’s Day since, I head out to Mama’s Garden, no matter what the weather, no matter what condition I’m in. I bring a sturdy mug of coffee, walk through the entrance arbour and down the short pathway, looking at the growing things around me.

I sit on the stone bench at the back of the garden.

“Thank you, Mama,” I say.

There are so many things to thank her for.

So I thank her and I thank God for her, and sometimes the talk with Mama gets mixed in with the prayer and it feels like the beings I am talking to are one and the same, but I don’t think either Mama or God would mind.

I give thanks.

For a mother who loved and tended her family. For a mother who taught us the importance of growing things. And for a mother whose love and faith live on in our hearts.

Garden photos by Hamlin Grange. Photos of Cynthia by Dale Ratcliffe.

This post is dedicated to my mother and mother-in-law, who mothered not just their own children, but all our cousins and friends when they needed mothering too.

Happy Mother’s day, and happy belated Mothering Sunday, to all women who tend and care for children.

A Good Home, Canada, Canadian Wine, Canadians, Flowers, Garden, Gardening, Gratitude, Home, Homes, Life in canada, Lifestyle, Poem, Spring, Spring Bulbs, Storms, The weather, Tulips, Wine, Words

A Fine Canadian Whine

April 30, 2014April 20, 2018 Cynthia Reyes

That funny sound across the land

Is not the geese in flying band

That sound across this country mine

Is just a fine Canadian whine

Photo by Hamlin Grange — Photos by Hamlin Grange ©

We whine and whine about our weather

Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter,

We whine at snow, heat, fog and rain

We whine, we carp and we complain

“Winter is hell”, we cried and said

(Forgetting hell is hot and red)

“Come Spring, come soon, or we shall rot”

So Spring herself is what we got

We’d dreamed of Spring’s so-pretty flowers

Forgetting Spring’s cold wind and showers

Spring came with those accompaniments

Arousing such crude sentiments

“Can you believe this awful cold?”

“Come on now Spring, break Winter’s hold!”

“Can you believe this awful wet?”

“Good God, this Spring is the worse yet!”

And on and on Canadians go

As if our lives were full of woe

Day in, day out we moan and groan

As if bad weather were ours alone

But grateful gardeners aren’t such grumps

We take the good and take the bumps

We welcome all the days of Spring

And give our thanks for what they bring

And so we wait the Winter out

And though at times we feel some doubt

We know that flowers need the rain

Without it, we would toil in vain

Without it, what would be the point

Without it, we’d be rolling joints

Oh, wait – out by our West-Coast way

Some people do that night and day

Okay, alright that was a slur

‘Gainst folks whose Springs are oft a blur

Of rain. Offense, they do deserve it not

(Their “B.C. Bud” is known as hot)

My West Coast friends, I will refrain

From mention of your weed and rain

I will not write about your pot

At least I will not write a lot

Back to my garden I will go

Back to a subject that I know

And walk between the growing plants

And tend to what the garden wants

At evening, sounds rise o’er the land

(It’s not the geese in flying band)

That pleasant sigh is me and mine

Sipping a fine Canadian wine.

****

I’m dedicating this poem to my friends on Canada’s west coast, hoping their sense of humour is working well today.

And especially to Louise, in Niagara-On-The-Lake, who has a lovely garden, and her husband Neil, who loved his work at a winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Despite the uncertain weather of some growing seasons, the story of Canadian wineries (in both the east and the west) is remarkable, with many award-winning wines. Way to go, Canadian wines!

A Good Home, Angels, Birds, Books, Chronic pain, Dogs, Garden, Inspiration, Life Challenges, Pets, Photographs, Spiritual, Spring

The Angel

April 8, 2014April 10, 2014 Cynthia Reyes

My staircase looked as tall as Mount Everest. But there was no alternative: I’d have to climb the mountain.

My back and leg were on fire with pain. As I’d done so many times before, I stood at the bottom of the stairs, summoning the courage. Then I started climbing — on hands, feet and knees — and told myself that I was a brave mountaineer. Sometimes, you just have to lie to yourself and hope yourself believes it.

At the top landing, I sat down. The truth was that I felt exhausted, sorry for myself and not at all brave. But it was worth the trip upstairs to my office. An email came from my husband, who’d left for work early that morning.

“Forgot to tell you”, he wrote. “I heard a Cardinal singing this morning. I looked out the kitchen door and saw a female… the male must have been nearby.”

I smiled. I could almost hear the bird singing. Could almost believe that spring had really arrived and winter was really over.

It was mid- afternoon and my daughter’s little dog, Mr. D., woke up and headed downstairs. It was time for his walk around the garden.

Together we went out the door and into the garden, snowflakes swirling around us.

He scampered along and I followed slowly, leaning on my cane. His fur is white, making him invisible against the snow without his sweater on. And he’s so small that the low boxwood plants that border the centre garden bed can hide him completely.

At one point I couldn’t see Mr. D. at all, though he was standing just a few feet away, wearing his sweater. Then I saw a blur of black and white speeding around the boxwood circle. I smiled. He slowed down till I caught up.

When we returned to the front doorway, I saw a small box, with my name on it.

I tore open the cardboard. There was a book inside.

It was Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things. I’d been wanting to read it.

There was a short note accompanying the book:

“For Cynthia, who notices things ‘close up’ and understands in both visceral and transcendent ways the ‘Signature of All Things’ and can write so beautifully even when she hurts.”

It was from Jacqui, who works at the London Public Library. How did she know? I wondered. How did she know that on a day like today, this gift would cheer me up no end?

I smiled. The angel at work again.

Sometimes the angel is a sound: the song of a cardinal on a winter day; the harmony played by the wind chimes on our verandah; the hilariously huge snore that comes from a tiny dog’s body as he snoozes on the floor beside me.

Sometimes she’s a scruffy-looking stranger. The young man who rushed to open a heavy door for me, his kind smile illuminating his entire face.

Sometimes she’s a friend. Jacqui, sending me that book. My husband, telling me that spring is here: the birds are singing. My sister, showing a keen understanding.

The phone rang. My sister had asked me – I forget when, exactly – to find out something for her. I did. But now she was on the phone, asking for the answer, and I couldn’t remember what it was that I’d found out. Too much pain, too little sleep, for days and nights on end. I felt ashamed to tell her that I couldn’t remember. I tried to speak; instead of words, a disjointed stutter was all I could manage. For just a moment, I felt as if I might burst into tears.

My sister recognized the warning signs and reacted quickly.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll talk tomorrow. Just stop everything and rest now.”

Image Via achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com/ — Via achurchforstarvingartists.wordpress.com/

I imagine that if the angel ever showed up as herself, she’d look like my mother: soft brown skin, short, silver-grey hair, the picture of serenity. In the meantime, she takes different forms and sounds, and helps me out when I least expect it.

“How do you manage to project such positive thoughts on your blog when you’re feeling so miserable?” a friend asked me one day. She’d paid me a surprise visit, and found me struggling to get around.

“When I write on my blog, I try to uplift my readers,” I replied. “Not sure what it does for them, but it sure makes me feel better!” At that, we’d both shared an understanding laugh and sipped our tea.

Of course, I should also have said: “Did I ever tell you about the angel?”

Dedicated to Merle, Jane, Joanne — and all the other angels in my life.