It isn’t that cocktail, champagne in orange juice but these, a sapling grown from a mimosa seed that blew into my front garden and germinated. I ignored the little buggers for a year, resisting the urge to do yard work. Then, call it pandemic fatigue, I said to myself, ”Get out of the comfy chair and watching YouTube videos. Go outside and do something!”

And so I have. We bought a hanging plant on Sunday. Then, on Wednesday, I bought the “J” hook needed to actually hang the plant on the front porch. Upon viewing,with pleasure and pride, my efforts at beautification, I knew these hideous saplings had to go. They were nothing but unwanted vegetation, weeds. Digging these tree wannabes out after they have put a root system down is a b-i-itch, but I dug four of them out. They look like they escaped from a Doctor Seuss story, when the leaves are out, but I got them gone.

And I think of my late ex-wife, Ayer, when I do the gardening. She has been on my mind lately. C, #2 son, is our child, now an adult. He inherited her Volvo station (estate) wagon and it’s been giving him trouble. He just finished working on the front suspension and now the engine is giving him problems. Getting another car means losing this surviving link to her. He was in tears over his dilemma.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant on Thursday. I ordered goat curry, he got lamb curry. We had a good time. It was the kind of meal the three of us might have shared when the times were good.

Ayer is gone now, has been gone nearly five and a half years. The rancour and bitterness of divorce has passed. And I think of her now as friend, lover, gardening mentor, and yes, wife.

“But you’re married to someone else now”, you say. True. But I’m not ashamed of those years any longer. And I’m being the man, the husband, I think she would want me to be.