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Plumping around the garden the other day, there she was. Squatting down on her haunches, a small garden spade in her hand. Digging little holes, a punnet of tomato seedlings resting on the grass beside her. I’d been sitting up on the back veranda thick in a book, the mug of tea by my side going cold. The day was autumn winter, getting colder. Those bright leaves down the back part of the yard were going flutter down on the ground. A great hunking cloud bank came floating overhead, blotting out the sun, making the wind come up. Made me look up and out of my book. Ruffled the pages so that I lost my place. Just like that. Didn’t know where I was, nor whose veranda I was sitting on. Should I be planting as the leaves are falling for the failing season? Or is my failing sister falling down to the ground along with the leaves all bright for rotting? I couldn’t fathom it. The whole measure of time overwhelmed me. A hard wind gust crashed against the old plum tree scattering up a big messy whoof of rusty leaves right across the veranda. A harsh breath of wind. And my sister not sowing seedlings in small holes in the ground in the spring time. Not out there at all. Not in any way that her hand would be coming up to tuck her long dark hair behind her right ear for a clearer view to digging. Not in the way that she’d hunker down to dig small holes of hope against a westward sea wind shoving itself over her old garden wall, shuddering her new plantings. Not in the way of her untroubled way of then standing to gaze down the rows of planted garden beds. Not her being there, here nor anywhere but the going. I sloshed out the cold tea over the veranda railing and wept with the spilling down and splashing down of it all.
