“Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
Yesterday morning I watched a program on TV about gardening design. I was watching with one eye while cutting out paper figures for Marco(buses that must be parked in a row) and so I never really caught names. I could hear that the people involved were from Britain, though.
It seems that their daughter has a chromosomal deviation and at age three she reacts more like a baby. She is deaf and medically fragile. Over the last three years, her parents have dealt with numerous hospital stays and a rescusitation. If anything about special parenting could be typical, theirs would be a fairly typical life with a severely disabled child. The last thing on their minds has been their garden and it has fallen into a state of non-existence, nevermind neglect. In the program a couple of garden designers tackle the garden in order to provide them with a place they can relax in when they are home and which provides tactile and visual stimulation for their daughter without taking up too much of their time in terms of maintenance.
The work of the Victorian garden designer, Getrude Jekyll was showcased. I have read somewhere that she came out to South Africa and designed a number of gardens in our well-known colonial homes. These gardens still exist and are a living testament to her skill and devotion.
At one point during the TV program, the mother says of her disabled daughter, “I thought I’d come to terms with the fact that she could die any time. But then the rescusitation happened and I realized that one could never come to terms with that.”
Amen. I thought.
Once again I was struck by how our surroundings become a reflection of our lives.
However much I love gardening, while Loren was struggling, it felt like a luxury to even consider decorating the world around us. It felt like a betrayal when plants would grow, seasons would change and our son’s condition stayed the same.
But time, in itself, became a friend rather than a foe. In time we found ABR and with it renewed hope. Hope and beauty are found in growing things, be it a plant or a baby. I found that I could once again appreciate the opening of a rose. The fact that I knew Loren could see the rose and smell it, made its existence all the more precious.
I’ll never forget how I came home from hospital one day and found that our gardener, Anton, a quiet man who speaks very little English, had created a new flower bed on a slope. Where he found the plants, I’m not quite sure. But I took that as his acknowledgement of our struggle for Loren’s life and his way to try and make things just a little better.
The couple in the TV program found it important to include things in the garden that their daughter would be able to see, smell and touch. They mentioned how with each little step of progress in their daughter’s development they are filled with joy. To me the mere fact that Loren reacted to something shown to him, meant the world. Often I would point that out to other people and I would receive only blank stares.
Loren had a few favourite things in and around the house and garden: A tassle of purple and silver beads, a Zimbabwean mobile made of brass birds and a chime that he wanted me to help him sound every time we sat on the deck. These things have found new places in our new home and garden. Magnus and Marco, who are both growing up with these things around them, enjoy them too. But to me, they will always have the bittersweet association with Loren.
When I was at university, we were tested in order to provide us with studying skills and career advice. One of the things that stood out for me is that I attach a high priority to be surrounded by beauty. I like decorating, I like the creativity found in dressing up, I love the visual aspects of cooking and crafts, I like gardening, listening to music and reading beautiful words. I have to live and work in a place that I find appealing.
It seems that it runs in the family. My maternal grandmother grew up in a part of South Africa which can be extremely dry. There are no mountains, only greyish-green vegetation and sand. Farms are large and sparsely populated. Even though people who live in conditions like that often take care to develop their social lives and possess skills in order to beautify their surroundings, I don’t think there would ever be the kind of stimulation and variety that a city dweller experiences on a daily basis. So when people came to visit – especially people that made an impression on the young girl that my grandmother once was by either their appearance or personality – she would go back later and preserve their footsteps in the sandy soil of their garden by placing wood bark over the imprints.
I think beauty is important. Remembering beauty is important. Preserving the beauty that we have in our lives and souls is of the utmost importance. And seeing to it that other people have their share of the beauty around us, is kindness.
Skyla Rose is a gorgeous little girl. She lives in a city called Cape Town.
