Chives don’t die—at least mine don’t. They come back every year. I count on them—first up in spring. Seventeen years ago, I planted one teeny pot. This year, I rock on the porch, tea in hand, noticing the chives have claimed a fourth of my garden. Today, I gaze at a green and lavender sea of bobbing purple balls.
Chives keep coming back – loyal, delicious, and oddly gorgeous.
A person can count on chives.
They make omelets scrumptious, spice salads, and savor sauces. I crown them the “Most Versatile Spice of All.”
Persistent, no-nonsense, down-to-earth – chives. Perennial, popping up every spring for years to come. I envy them.
Last year, I still believed I was a perennial, like my husband, sisters, friends, and everyone I love – all perennials. This year, I envy them because I know I am not.
My chives will return next spring. I may not be here to greet them.
My friend Janice believes in reincarnation. I don’t, but I want to. My late-stage heart failure, purple nails, purple lips, labored breath, and arduous steps are qualifiers for a speed course in reincarnation.
As a much younger woman, I endured successful chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant for lymphoma. This left a scar on my heart. I lived peaceably with that scar for decades. A recent bout of COVID rattled the scar and sent my ventricles whirling, pole-vaulting me into heart failure.
End-stage. Tick tock. I watch the clock. Up against mortality, I’ve become an annual. A bloom and go.
Yes, you may ask, “Going where?” Well, Dearest, you must work that out for yourself. Nobody can tell you, though many try.
Me? I probably won’t be an angel, incarnate in clouds, flying around the Divine—my husband’s current best guess. Perennials can think like that—blind repetition of childhood catechisms—but wait; nobody gets to be a perennial forever.
Here is where I land today: After that last breath, with consciousness gone and my body a flame, yes, ashes to ashes, dust to dust seems natural.
But my soul? I bet I have one – a unique and mysterious gift that belongs to the never-ending handiwork of Creation.
Janice swears we come back. Okay then, maybe, like chives, my soul is a perennial.
MARY-FRANCES SCHNEIDER 