My mother’s garden was a kingdom of color.
Its borders blazed with Mussaendas—red, pink, cream, yellow—
a living necklace strung around the earth.
Within, Bougainvillea cascaded in purple and flame,
bearing names like whispered prayers: White Madonna, Red Beauty, Raspberry Ice.
Roses stood in solemn rows, each a monarch—
Queen Elizabeth, Black Magic, Bleeding Heart, Iceberg—
their petals unfolding like secrets kept in velvet.
Orchids lifted their strange faces—Phalaenopsis, Cattleya, Dendrobium—
brightly lit lanterns in the shade.
Begonias, Petunias, Gerberas, Chrysanthemums,
and the patient spines of cacti completed the chorus.
When the garden sang in bloom,
it was a hymn for the weary eye,
a balm for the soul.
My mother was its priestess,
hands anointing soil with water,
fingers blessing leaves with care.
We were her acolytes,
helping when time allowed,
until studies carried us away.
Still, the garden thrived,
bright as her devotion.
But memory began to slip from her grasp,
like petals falling unnoticed to the ground.
At first, the forgetting was a shadow,
then a storm.
She left the watering can untouched,
the roses unpruned,
the orchids unsprayed.
Meals went cold,
her own hunger forgotten,
as dementia gnawed at the roots of her mind.
The garden dimmed with her.
Leaves curled, blossoms shrank,
and nature mirrored her unraveling.
Wild creepers crept in,
like the slow tightening of dementia’s grip.
The once-lively sanctuary became a hushed ruin,
its silence echoing her fading voice.
Now she sleeps through most of the day,
waking only to eat,
while the garden lies tangled in neglect.
It is a sorrowful symmetry:
my mother and her garden,
both wilting, both overtaken.
The soil could be coaxed back to bloom,
but she will not return to see it.
The flowers may rise again,
yet her eyes will remain closed to their glory.
