Wilt

My brother was a summer baby, born with the bright and earthy smell of spicy tomato leaves in the humid Midwest air. I can still picture him running barefoot in our mom’s garden, plucking red fruits from the tall, leafy stalks inside their cages. I’ve grown up to a dozen tomato plants each year of my adult, home-owning life, with predictable results. Until this year. 

In a cruel twist of fate, what began as my most productive flowering plants to date have slowly started to wilt and die. One by one. In a matter of days.

I think of the farmers generations ago who didn’t have google and didn’t know what was going on. How they blamed the devil. Fungal Tomato Wilt- I discover the cause and determine there is no cure. Remove all infected plants to prevent spread of disease. Do not compost. Do not eat the fruits. Do not use soil for four years. Biblical passages come to mind.

The soil in my yard is dry like stone. It hasn’t rained since I planted the seedlings four weeks ago. I’ve diligently watered everything and it is thriving, except for my tomatoes, which I now plead with to drink from the hose. But their vascular system has been decayed by fusarium and no mater how much I try, they can’t get any water. So they wilt. And they die. I cry and I water the survivors, knowing their days are numbered, too.

Nature is swift and without care for our tender hearts. No matter how hard I tried to reach my brother, he couldn’t hear me. The depression had atrophied his central nervous system and he wilted, slowly, until he died. The pit of my stomach turns sour looking at the empty plots where the tomatoes once stood. My son, who elicits remarks of, “he looks exactly like your brother” runs in the garden and I recognize them both. I see his silhouette at the playground and my heart skips a beat, as suddenly I’m 14 chasing my brother around at the same park, 20 years ago. The collision of memory and present moment is dizzying.

I regroup. Topsoil into pots. New seedings get a fresh start, far from the infected zone.

Growth begins again.

Grief is creative in all its reminders.