Seasons of Harvest

Six years ago this week, my husband of twenty-nine years died.  Yes, he passed from this temporary world into the eternal, from the physical to the spiritual, from earth to heaven.  But he also died and took our marriage with him. 

It dawned on me today that he died just as the summer turned to fall.  The changing of the seasons.  And my life entered another season as well. 

A dear childhood family grew potatoes
I see his face and the red barn whenever I smell a real dirt-covered potato

When I was a child, I loved summer.  I grew up walking in soft, loamy silt, a foot or more deep, that a not-so-ancient glacier had deposited across our Matanuska Valley.  The glacier was still visible in its 
valley as it retreated in silence, its work of creating the rich farmland finished.  It was rarely hot in Alaska but on warm days, we swam in lakes created from potholes left by more glaciers.  Years before, they had scoured the earth and left behind mountain chunks of ice that slowly sank into the soft earth and eventually melted. Long slow creation of topography. As a child, my days crawled by at glacial speed and life stretched endless before me; it was a season of play. 

Finger Lake, 1956

 (I hit the mother-lode of 1950's pictures of Alaska.  Lovely meander down memory lane. 

I miss my dad.  http://www.flickriver.com/photos/vieilles_annonces/tags/alaska/  )

All that glacial silt was perfect soil for farming and gardening and we did both. My dad cultivated crops and cows, my mother cultivated carrots and cauliflower.  We children moved irrigation pipes in a clumsy stagger of whining and domination.  The smaller ones were soaked when the bigger and stronger tipped up the long water pipes and poured out the frigid contents.  We complained and swatted the inevitable farm flies as we hoed weeds and thinned carrots.  It was a season of work. 


A marriage has seasons of summer- the play of small children, the hard work of tilling, tending, pulling weeds of discontent and irritation.  As a young wife, I also gardened.  My mother could identify exactly what the baby plants were, "That's not a weed, it's a radish."  I was less careful and sometimes lost the packet before it could be carefully staked and pounded down at the head of the row.  So my garden and my marriage had some surprises. "Oh, I thought that was radishes but it is obviously nasturtiums."  "I thought you liked people." Mysteries revealed in due time. Identities sorted out. 

 Planting and tending in a healthy garden results in harvest and abundance for summer always passes into autumn.   Radishes are eaten, nasturtiums are plucked for salads and nosegays.  Surpises are sorted out. In a marriage, entrenched  roles are examined and the inevitable changes come. 


So our marriage ended but the harvest continues.  Our children stagger their way through the watering of their lives and marriages.  Our rich, family community has shrunk and my new community sustains only me but I learned those skills of relationships with him.  Our daughter mourns the loss of  Grandpa Cleveland for her son; our son shares her grief as he anticipates a daughter who will never know his father.  But they are good, conscientious parents, perhaps lessons were learned from watching us toil the ground of parenthood. 

But the surprising harvest is me. I have  bought a truck and camper and sold a home. I bought a log house and am creating a haven and home in an unfamiliar environment. I have ventured into new relationships and explored new places. I made another community and together, we planned a retreat to nurture the vision of a deeper drink at the Well.  And, I'm discovering my identity.  I'm curious, insatiably curious. I love books and reading.  I was not surprised when I named taste as my favorite sense, I love to cook and eat.  But some parts, some labels didn't fit. 

I was always a "moody" child. "You are so moody, stop mopping."  I was a "complicated" wife.    "Why must everything be so complicated with you?"  Identities, or at least, labels.  A seed packet  emptied and firmly pounded into my soul. 

But if my marriage ended too soon, on the cusp of our harvest season, my identity did not die with it.  Turns out I'm not moody, I'm sensitive and prone to clinical depression. Long, light-deprived Alaskan winters were a likely contribution to my struggle to maintain emotional balance.   I experience life with both debilitating sorrow and deep joy. I wouldn't have it any other way. 

And I'm not just complicated... - "involving many different and confusing aspects : a long and complicated saga;"

I'm complex- "consisting of many different and connected parts : a complex network of water channels.

• not easy to analyze or understand; complicated or intricate : a complex personality | the situation is more complex than it appears."

Turns out my label wasn't totally wrong, just incomplete. There was more to me than a pretty picture on the front of a seed packet to become; there was also the small print on the back side, details I didn't bother to read.  Until I had to. 

So alone, I move into another fall. Another season of harvest, of preparation for winter's rest.  And I'm content with being complex and sensitive. Labels no longer fit- I'm not defined by wife or, even mother, as much as I love my children.  Sister grows richer, friend is more precious.   It's a good season. 

Gorgeous aspen, birch and oak trees make up this scenery out of the Black Hills of South Dakota.
 This image was taken by iWitness Viewer: Jackie Zoller Shibley.