The fat buds of spring will bloom
Nature was there for me when my father died, and it carries on blossoming
Right now I am surrounded by fields and birdsong and spring flowers and purple heather. I’m in deepest Norfolk for Easter, in a 300-year-old house where I’ve been fortunate to stay many times since being dragged here by my parents when I was 15 and revising for my GCSEs.
The daffodils are going over but there are fritillaries with their little bobbing heads under the trees and tiny yellow celandines in the grass around the house.
Nature has often helped me mend. When I was depressed a few years ago, I sought the fat, pink blossom of a cherry tree in a park near where I live in north London. I ran to it, smelt it, drank in its petals and had the thought that this blossom, this natural abundance that appears every year, does not know that I am down. It is defiant in the face of my depression; it is thick and flushed and showing off to the world.
I am not depressed now, but I have felt the sadness of loss over the past few weeks. It’s nearly 15 years since my father died and I miss him. He was 63; I was 31 and I lived at home with him and my mother for the three years leading up to his death. The day he died, we – me, my mum and sister - came home from the hospital shattered.
I remember lying on the grass in my parents’ garden, weeping and exhausted, eventually crawling into the single bed in my childhood bedroom, with its white duvet and purple walls.
I don’t remember much about what we did for the rest of that day, what we ate, who we told, but the garden was a sanctuary, and we held his wake there a few weeks after his death.
It’s fitting that the Norfolk home I’m in is owned by the vicar who led my father’s funeral service. It’s a place where my dad spent several happy springs and summers.
Yesterday, my mum and I pottered around Sheringham, a somewhat curious seaside town with a high street of quirky shops leading to wide, sandy beaches.
Twice I heard Beatles songs in the town: a black-clad street singer sang Yesterday, while a charity shop blasted All You Need Is Love.
The Beatles were one of my dad’s favourite bands, and we had the organist at his funeral play a selection of their songs at the end of the service. I think he was making his presence felt. (I also love that Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter, includes a cover of the Beatles’ Blackbird.)
After a snack lunch on a bench overlooking the sea, my mother and I went for a walk in Sheringham Park, an 18th century garden designed by Humphry Repton, where a rhododendron-lined pathway leads to spectacular views of the fields and sea beyond.
There was plenty of blossom, but my favourite tree was a spindly magnolia, with its tight, pink buds yet to open. It held so much promise and seemed to be saying: “Here I am, ready or not.”
As I sit and write, I can see red, brick barns as old as this house through the open stable door, a pale blue sky and a blossoming cloud that looks like the kind of cloud children draw. It is dusk, and the cloud appears almost purple now. The rooks have gone quiet, the night owls ready to take their place.
“Nature is very clever,” is a catchphrase of my mum’s, and I think she’s right. It knows what to do when, and the results in spring are stunning. It gives me strength, it gives me faith in the world. Nature carries on regardless, and so can I.
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