Planting Pansies, Planting Normal

Reflections on Laura Fazio’s Memorial Anniversary, April 26, 2001

Planting Pansies, Planting Normal

Reflections on Laura Fazio’s Memorial Anniversary, April 26, 2001

by Susan Fusco-Fazio

Hope springs eternal, and sometimes blooms in a circular patch of pansies planted in the ground in April, when it’s too cold for most flowers, but not too cold to plant pansies. I planted the pansies in a patch of soil around the thundercloud plum tree in our front yard in mid April when my daughter lay intermittently awake in a hospital bed in our living room, awaiting my return. It may have seemed strange to those who walked past our house that day to see me planting pansies. I imagined that they were looking at me and thinking I was crazy. I saw some gawking and others avoiding my gaze when they looked toward the only home on the street that housed a dying child. 

  I knelt on the cold earth and imagined what the neighbors might be thinking as they drove by or walked past our house, while having to acknowledge that bad things happen to people just like them, on happy streets in sweet suburban neighborhoods south of Boston. But maybe, just maybe, they were thinking the same thing that I was thinking that day; that Laura must be okay and will get better, if her Mom is out there planting pansies. Why else would a mother of a terminally ill child be out on her knees on the lawn in front of her house with a tray of pansies in purple, yellow, lavender, and white. 

I turned the soil the way I did every year, to prepare for our spring tradition right before Easter, when Laura and I would plant the pansies together around the thundercloud plum tree in the front yard of our home. Years before, Laura and I picked out that tree as a gift for Paul on our wedding anniversary. We all planted the tree together that fall. Laura and I made a pansy garden around that tree each spring.

This planting tradition would not be interrupted, I declared to myself before I asked Paul to go out to shop for the pansies. 

I wondered if the hospice nurse thought it odd as she walked past me when she headed into the house to tend to Laura that day. I bet she wondered why I was planting the pansies instead of leaving them where they were for the past three days; at Laura’s bedside where she could gaze at them during her dazed and intermittent waking moments. What she didn’t know was that Laura told me to plant the pansies that morning. 

She looked at me and said, “Mom. It’s time. I’ve looked at the pansies long enough. You should plant them today. It’s sunny out and it’s almost Easter.” 

So I did what Laura told me to do, as I was always prone to do. I kissed Laura on her forehead, told her I loved her, and carried the flat of pansies from the bedside tray table out to the front yard as the tears from my eyes were misting the petals. 

Outdoors, on that cool sunny day, the air held a promise of new life. Indoors, just steps away, the air was laden with the heaviness of impending death and the scent of a lavender candle. I planted normal that day,  if I am to look back now and say what I did. I believe I was pretending that my life was normal and that maybe, just maybe, if I planted those beautiful angel face winged flowers that my daughter would somehow get better, and that life would go on as it should.  I imagined that if Laura was well, she would have been jumping up and down with joy, then faithfully kneeling beside me and placing each single pansy in a hole that I had carefully dug for her. 

I planted the pansies that day in April when time was running out for Laura. Visitors who came to see Laura in her last weeks of life walked past the pansies to get to the door. Maybe they pretended too, that Laura might actually get better when they walked past the freshly planted beaming pansies. In reality, Laura did not get better. I didn't know that day, when I set out to plant the pansies that our daughter would die two weeks later on April 26, just ten days after Easter.

Every year, I plant joy bringing pansies in a world without Laura, in a world devoid of what brought me the most joy. Laura is no longer here with me to plant with, but there will still be lots of pansies in my flower boxes, in the garden, and at Laura’s grave in the cemetery.

I continue to keep up the tradition of planting the pansies each spring while I cherish my memories of planting with Laura. I remember what life once was with Laura and imagine what life could have been, as I  attempt to come to terms with our stark reality each year on Laura’s memorial anniversary.   I do whatever it takes to bring relief and solace to my heart and to my not so normal life. When I plant, tend to, and gaze at the pansies, I feel a loving connection with Laura and her beautiful and joyful spirit. Laura’s memory and the blooming pansies help me to keep hope alive.

Pretend play is not just for children, I have come to realize. Pretend play’s very nature is to be unrealistic, like a happy illusion. 

Note: The thundercloud plum tree in our front yard bloomed with pink blossoms on the exact day that Laura died. The staff of Laura’s middle school, South Middle in Braintree, planted a tree in Laura’s  honor in front of the school with a garden surrounding it. We chose a thundercloud plum tree. Each year since Laura’s passing, 22 years so far, this tree has bloomed on the week of Laura’s memorial anniversary.