Do you remember when you were unable to leave your couch? In some parallel universe you were awarded a medal for the most consecutive episodes of Adventure Time ever consumed. Your eyes were open but not seeing; you hadn’t showered or moved or spoken for days.

Earlier that year, in spring, I had planted the food forest: berries, pollinators, herbs, perennials. It was the season we sheltered in place. The year we washed our hands and sanitized our groceries and worried about infecting our children and our parents.

Do you remember how her increased visits to the doctor were routine and she was just having an “off week”?

I turned over the earth. I practiced the art of composting. I saw new bugs I’d never seen before. I planted a gooseberry bush.

Do you remember texting us that she was having trouble breathing a month later? That’s when she went back to the hospital.

It was the summer, and I was working outside, taking off my dirty gloves to text you back. Wiping sweat from my brow – it was already hot. 

Do you remember when one became two? When the steady beep of the hospital monitor became the steady beeps of two hospital monitors? When “a patient to visit” became “patients you had to visit”?

I witnessed my plants grow in the fall. The gooseberry was strong and green and thorny and beautiful.

Do you remember when you told us the doctors “had done all they could do”? We sat at the firepit and I had brought fig cake with figs from my tree. You couldn’t eat a bite. Your husband reprimanded you for not eating. You refused anyway. And I stood up for you because I remember that sometimes your body going without is the least of your concerns. Comfort is not always in the fixing, is it.

Do you remember when your sister died? And the next day your mother lost all speech and cognition? All the leaves were falling from my plants, rotting on the ground. And then, in your grief, when you could barely breathe, your spouse betrayed you.

That’s when the winter freeze set in. And then it was 6 degrees. And then the power went off. And then there was ice in our sinks. And then people died in our town. My years of gardening turned into cracked, dry, frozen husks from days under the ice.

You sat on the couch.

Your blood frozen in your veins.

Your sleep only drunken.

Your mind only white noise.

Your breath only shallow.

You, wrapped in a brown blanket and saying things like dying is better.

I don’t remember how many weeks, months it took until you stopped needing bourbon for breakfast.

The city slowly thawed out, and people returned to their homes, many of which flooded after frozen, broken pipes. Water had crashed through ceilings, walls, basements. Our backyard was drippy and cold and muddy and barren.

You went to a therapist. You went to two therapists. You decided to try. You hated yourself for trying. You went on walks. We’d send each other videos. In mine, I’d show a few feeble sprigs of swiss chard that had survived. You’d show me your kitchen redo. Do you remember when you started cooking again? I came over, we had chili. You poured me wine. We would actually laugh. You both went to therapists. Two, three therapists in the mix now. You had us over for dinner. You didn’t have him over for dinner but you met out on a park bench. Once a week even. You met your parents out for lunch. Only your dad could talk.

I started to work in the garden again. I was planting seedlings indoors, hoping for temperatures to climb high enough to where I could put some seeds in my raised beds outside. I’d do a quick turn around the yard as I dumped my compost. So many things had died. I’d have to plant a lot this year.

Do you remember when he moved back in?

Do you remember when you spoke your mind freely to us?

You got that circle tattoo.

You got that flower.

He slept in the guest room, accepted life on your terms.

I remember it well: I walked outside, probably to sort out a fight between my children. It was starting to get warm. I glanced over to the spot where my sagging, sad-looking skeleton of a gooseberry plant had not yet been dug up and replaced. I couldn’t believe my eyes: it was bursting with green.  Reaching, arching towards the sky. Do you remember that picture I sent of it?

She is burned in my mind.