Promised photos of my Irises

My apologies for the long wait. I deadheaded the Irises today and remembered that I’d promised pictures. Here you go. The very tall blooms in this photo are hybrids and will be larger than the common purple irises that fill my flower beds.

And here is the companion bed of Iris blooms on the other side of the drainage ditch.

And another three planting beds on the opposite side of the property.

Once again, I have sad news to share but don’t know where to start. We made friends with one of our neighbors who lives across the street from our mailbox. Our mailbox sits about 3 blocks away, but it’s down a hill, so at the least it gives us a very minimal walk if we only walk to the mailbox and back to our house. We met Cheryl when we began walking after DH’s diagnosis of diabetes last year. She walked with us off and on, and we talked about her chickens, my sister and HER chickens, and life in general. We knew she was a nurse, but she worked for a major medical insurance company rather than at a medical facility. Every time I gave her an empty egg carton, she traded it for one full of her freshly laid eggs.

Before we left for Arizona in November of last year, I had a very actively growing tomato plant. I offered it to Cheryl. She took the tomato plant and said she would put it in her mother’s garage which gets sunlight for most of the day. She felt it would thrive there. This woman had ten green thumbs! If anyone could make this plant produce through the dead of winter, she could. I told her I would see her on our return from Arizona.

We returned in January of this year and I didn’t catch her outside watering her plants and never saw her car move from the driveway, so I began leaving my egg cartons on the swing by her front door. One day I called her to see how she was doing. She couldn’t come to the phone so I said to let her know that I’d called. Time goes by and I get up the nerve to knock on her door. She’s laying down — Once again I say to please let her know I dropped by and was wondering how she was doing. The family had no comment.

We went to Arizona for a week and came back on the 19th of April. We stopped by the mailbox and saw several different cars at Cheryl’s. Thinking she must have relatives visiting, we go on home and I make a mental promise to go see her the next day. The next morning I’m reading the local obituaries and see what I think is a younger photo of Cheryl. A call to the funeral home and yes, it is her and she passed away on April 8, 2013. I’m stunned. She was only 57 years old–far too young to die. I quickly grab one of my handmade cards and sign it. I tell DH that I’m going to take a card over to Cheryl’s family. I walk there and when her son answers the door, I am at a loss as to what to say — the tears begin and I tell him how many times I’ve thought of her–every time I go out my office door onto the deck, I see the drip tray for my tomato plant and I think of her and think to myself I need to go see her. But I don’t. And now she’s gone and I can’t. I ask how she died — pancreatic cancer and she went very quickly. My aunt died from pancreatic cancer. I was her caregiver and I know how very painful this particular cancer can be.

The moral of this story is that I failed to follow my own advice — be sure to tell those you love that you love them. If you have a friend and you don’t see or hear from them in a reasonable amount of time, and you want to keep that friendship alive, do something about it. Call them, and keep calling (yes, make a pest of yourself until they tell you to stop). Go over and ask to see the person. You never know what may be going on… I should have gone to the door more than just the couple of times. I should have asked if she was o.k. I should have let them know that I cared about her.

Life is precious and very fragile. Be safe, be well and please be happy. Be sure to tell those you love that you love them, and keep your friendships alive.