When I was ten-years-old, my brother Neil left home for prep school. He was entering his first year at Phillip's Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, before student flights would make the trip eastward convenient. We watched him board a silver zephyr at the depot in downtown Ottumwa, all of about five feet tall and ninety-five pounds. His suitcases contained an odd assortment of school wear. At Phillips, he had to wear a sport coat and tie to class every day, and trousers called “Ivy Leagues”. Our mother, the antithesis of flighty, was fretful that she had allowed herself to be persuaded he go. I heard her talking on the phone to Pauline about that. "He is so small and young." We waited two days for word that he had safely disembarked in Boston.
The situation arose because Neil was really bright. I dutifully stifled my pride when Mr. Snell, Neil's former sixth grade teacher, remarked to our class how smart my brother was. By then, Neil had already been at Phillips for a year. Mr. Snell would recount how my brother was the only student he knew who could sit in math class doing his science homework, lifting his desk top to read from his social studies text, and still be able to answer the math question correctly. People from Ottumwa are prone to telling whoppers, but Mr. Snell gave the story a ring of truth. After all, Neil had won the Phillip's scholarship over hundreds of other applicants, and a New England prep school would certainly be better for him than a public school in Iowa.
The summer before he left, we were running a race in the street in front of our house. Our parents had taken our oldest brother Paul to visit a prospective college campus, and Neil, next in the birth order, had been left in charge. Neil, the fastest runner on Quincy Avenue, gave everyone a generous head start. There were perhaps eight of us in the race altogether. As Neil gained on me, he was crowded by one of the other racers, and he saw that he was about to step on my heel. He told me later he could see what was coming, and he reactively closed his eyes.
I fell, and had quite a nice scrape on my knee, on one elbow, and under my chin. Being ten-years-old, I shrieked in pain and fear, and began to run towards home. Mrs. Tierney, the neighborhood nurse, was briefly involved, but it was Neil who guided me into the house, into the bathroom, and cried openly as he bandaged my wounds. I was distressed, to be sure, but I felt badly for my brother, who didn't mean to hurt me and was taking it so hard. I didn't know what to say to him.
It was worse than just a few scrapes. When my chin hit the pavement, my lower and upper jaws met just right, damaging twelve teeth. The front two took the hardest hit, which was unavoidable because they were chipmunk teeth, and hung about a half inch longer than their gum-mates. In subsequent years I mentally thanked Neil for accomplishing that day what I would have had to wait for years to do at the dentist! Think of the childhood cruelties he spared me – not being called names, like Bucky Beaver or Fang. Neil was simpatico; he had a chipped front tooth, too, courtesy of Little League baseball.
Neil did another memorable thing that summer, when he was present in our daily lives. He planted flowers. Our mom admitted to a purple thumb, and didn't even try. She said our soil was too sandy, and the yard was too small and shady for both kids and flowers. Neil found a sunny spot behind the garage, along the gravel alleyway, away from the kids and the yard. He planted marigolds. I still see them. We had marigolds on the alley side of our garage! It was so remarkable! The accomplishment spoke for itself – we needn't say thing. It was obvious how delightful those little blooms were.
After that last summer, Neil was an important ghost in our home for nine months a year (except at Christmas!). A day seldom passed that someone didn't say something about him. We couldn't afford to call him very often, so that wasn't an option for maintaining contact. I suppose talking about him was our way of keeping him close. Our mother spoke of him most often. She taught home economics at the junior high four blocks from our house, and she had the three of us girls still at home. Still, she set aside time to write him on Sunday, her precious Neil so far away. It was hard for her to let him leave the nest at only fourteen years of age.
I don't remember for sure if Neil planted flowers behind the garage when he was home from Andover for the summers, but the seeds of a gardener were planted in him. He grew bigger and more worldly, yet when it came time to go to college, he chose Grinnell College, back home in Iowa. He went to Iowa Law School, but as fact is stranger than fiction, he now lives in Andover, Massachusetts, with Judith. Hubba and I took our kids there to visit them, about the time our son was the age Neil was when he was drawn to Andover. I understood then how difficult that decision was for our mom.
For years we have gotten updates on Neil's garden in Andover. He takes a week off each spring to get things in order. He is adept and artful, and the whole neighborhood appreciates his skilled expertise. He and Judith have little low chairs they sit in to get “a garden's eye view”, as he puts it. The summer we were there, he had a bed of the most vivid-colored zinnias. I had always thought zinnias were faded rust and gold, like the ones we plant for fall color in Iowa. These were bright pink and red and yellow and orange. Inside, Judith had a variety of curious little vases for single blooms, and a low dish with a tiny frog holding another single stem or two.
It all came rushing back to me. The marigolds. I never thought I had to say anything, that he knew that I knew his flowers were special. I said nothing.
I made a quilt instead. I used all solids: green to represent the plants and brown for the earth, a basic shoo-fly pattern with sashing and cornerstones. However, at random places scattered throughout the quilt are the “zinnias”, bright spots of color that Neil cultivated. The eleven-inch border is densely quilted with round flower petals, so much so that the quilt took an honorable mention at a guild show, due only to the thousands of little stitches that wrapped Neil's garden. I call the quilt “Neil's Garden, Zinnias for Judith”.
As I write about his quilt and what inspired it, I realize I never told Neil how much his boyhood gardening fascinated me. I always thought he knew, like I thought he knew how much we missed him at 415 Quincy Avenue. But how could he? We didn't say anything. So, I'm telling him now.
Copyright © 3/30/2005 Kari E.O. Burns
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