My Mother’s Angel Wings

"All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."- Abraham Lincoln

Losing a parent at an early age is a confusing life event for a child. The loss is hard to process, no matter how old the children are. As time goes by, the grief for an infant may manifest in subtle ways. For older children, the pain from the loss is a little less subtle, and a bit more impactful. For young adult children who may be busy with life and raising children of their own, the wounds are deep but easier to ignore.

The loss of their parents can leave a child vulnerable to feelings of disconnection, much like a leaf without the stem to sustain it will wither and die. Without the orchestrating influence of parents, a child can withdraw from emotions, and disassociate from their essence until it disappears.

Both my parents died in their fifties. At thirty, I was the mother of two girls, ages one and six. My father’s death overwhelmed me. Four years later, I hadn’t begun healing from my father’s death when my mother joined him in heaven. It weighed heavily on me that my children would now grow up without grandparents to support their dreams or celebrate their accomplishments. Taking the place of my grief, I redirected my feelings. I grieved for my children’s pain, neglecting my own. I didn’t acknowledge the effect on me.

Denial for the purpose of survival was the path chosen to handle profound loss. Seasons have come and gone, and with each passing year, I have experienced grief in other forms but have managed it the same way; denial. Failed marriages, unplanned career changes, losing friends, I never addressed the emotional damage on my heart, my mind and even my soul from all these losses.

Wedged into the structure to which I cling, this propensity to deny that which is painful or unpleasant has fractured my personality. Forcing myself to bite off chunks of pain from loss for processing, I am entering an uncharted stage in life. Lately, the insight I gain has come from deeper inside and brought to the surface new quirks I didn’t even realize I developed as a coping mechanism.

I have become uncomfortable in social situations and am guarded with acquaintances. Reserving my true personality for only a handful of people I trust, I put on a face around people I meet, and my circle of friends has shrunk. I seem sociable enough and interact with new people, but subconsciously I push away anyone who has known me for a while by doing something off-putting. Easier to keep people at a distance before I can get hurt.

This week I attended nose work camp. A three-day conference of sorts, nose work camp is a venue for practicing and learning how to do K9 detection. A completely immersive experience, nose work camp gives us campers permission to deny the existence of anything but what is happening at the moment. Surrounded by a small gathering of those from all walks of life, I embraced the experience by leaning on the one thread in common; our love for our dogs.

We arrived at the event location, a beautiful little site in an unincorporated community in Maricopa County known as Strawberry, Arizona. Nestled within a forest of ponderosa pines and aspens are the impeccably maintained buildings and two rows of cabins. The meticulously kept landscaping and common areas were the antithesis of what one would expect to choose to hold a gathering that included over 30 dogs.

Looking up the center of the rows of charming little cabins in which we stayed.

Usually booked by sizeable groups for weddings, family reunions and other such events, a K9 nose work camp must have seemed like a preposterous idea. When propositioned, the owners might have been wondering, what is nose work? From their perspective, they were very trusting. The owners of the establishment welcomed us and bestowed upon us the responsibility of holding their facility in the highest regard.

For me, an escape from the blistering desert summer heat was reason enough to sign up for the inaugural nose work camping event, no more questions asked. I was going to spend three nights with my dog in the mountains with like-minded people. My dog, Winnie, and I are not afraid of the unknown, and with no expectations there is little room for disappointment.

Right at the start, a summer afternoon thunderstorm greeted all the campers within an hour of arriving. Above, through the canopy of trees, came the flash, which was then followed by the inevitable crash. And then came the rain. While the storm was a sensory delight to humans and to some canines, the noisy light show overwhelmed the more sensitive dogs. This would be the first of many happenings to test our resilience including searching in the rain, or in the dark, and sharing a search area with a docile elk cow and her calf who only wanted to lie down in the soft turf and chew their cuds.

This mother elk and her baby came to visit several times. ( It may have been a different cow and calf each time.)

Once we were moved in and our canine partners were safe and comfortable in the cabins, we gathered for the opening meeting. Under the shelter of the large ramada roof the gentle sound of raindrops were the sound track. With equal passion, many campers among us opened up about details of their nose work journey to a group of strangers without feeling social pressures or fears. There was no judging or assessments from officials or peers. Within the controlled environment, it was a simple task to overcome self-doubt and reveal one’s true feelings. For me, it was empowering, therapeutic and satisfying.

Working with some very talented handlers with skilled and experienced dogs, I bore witness to some remarkable nose work. We all got to see each other working, and the benefits of this were incalculable. Learning through osmosis can be an effective method.

I will never forget observing as we all completed search after search, each teams’ improvements. Each team grew better at balancing the delicate task of give and take, an essential ingredient in teamwork. I felt my relationship with my dog expand. At the end of each day, all the campers gathered to discuss how the day’s sniffing went and to view videos of our searches. Right until the moment it was time to go, I continued learning.

As the wind-down process began, it threatened the delicate euphoria I had been living in. The magic we created on that mountain would disperse as each of us went our separate ways.

Down from the mountain I drove after camp, bringing with me all the benefits I gained from having had this experience. Living in a vacuum for three days, I found the isolation pleasant, and it was hard to leave it behind. I wanted to hold on to the peace it gave me. What a delightful break it was from what happens in the real world.

This morning, while sipping my coffee to clear the zombie-like brain fog I woke up with, I unified the plethora of emotions into one category and recaptured the magic. It was the intimacy created by the small number of people driven by a large desire to feed their addiction. This had been the collective theme of the entire three days.

Feeling grateful to all who gave their time and energy to organize the event, and all the participants who generously shared their stories, I am thankful for having been able to participate.

Sitting at my desk while my computer programs loaded, I picked up my cell phone, a device I had ignored for days. I wasn’t eager to get to work and felt fortunate to have no set schedule that needed to be met. Scrolling through my messages, I saw a text message from my sister. Along with a picture of a houseplant the words in the bubble were, “The Angel Wing is blooming.”

Small now but from a mighty mother plant, this angel wing begonia has a promising future.

The houseplant in the picture is an angel-wing begonia. When well-nourished and flourishing, angel-wing begonias have large, silvery-pink spotted dark-green leaves that hang from the plants’ main stems and look like upside-down teardrops. In the picture my sister sent, under the new leaves the plant had grown were the emerging little pink blossoms. Still on my emotional high from nose work camp, I felt this picture moving me profoundly.

Earlier this summer, my sister and I had traveled around the Pacific Northwest together and on our visit with family, my mother’s sister, our auntie gave us a clipping from this house plant that had been living in water to encourage it to grow roots. A stick with one stunted, aging leaf and a new leaf trying to bud, this barely alive stem had come from the houseplant that had belonged to our mother.

I am not at all like my mother, who was a natural horticulturist. My sister, however, is. Trained and educated, she is quite talented in gardening and cultivating. In her care, the little shoot, the tangible connection to our mother, is thriving. In the month and a half since being planted, that clipping has not only put down roots, but already pushed forth a bloom. Now that is resilience.

“The Angel Wing is happy.” With a whoosh, the wireless response to my sister’s text flew through the ether. “This is astonishing. This is comforting. Thank you for caring for this treasured connection to our mom.”

“It is a sweet connection to care for.” My sister replied.

Taking me back to my childhood, I remember the angel wing begonia growing in the house we lived in until I was age ten. That plant continued to thrive through my teens and twenties and survived for the past thirty years since my mother’s passing in the custody of my auntie’s caring hands. Still growing, it's astonishing that is the same plant. It is so old. And now my sister has a piece of the original and will maintain the link.

As difficult as it is to dig into painful moments from my past, it seems to lift me up and shine light where darkness has for too long lived. In dealing with the emotions evoked by memories, one at a time, I am healing myself.

Ignoring my parents’ deaths may have seemed necessary, but time is changing that. Now is the time to reflect. Like the blossoms on the houseplant, I need to let the emerging emotions fill in the empty spaces, knowing that, like the leaves of the begonia plant protect its flowers, my mother’s angel wings are protecting my memories.