Right here where the ocean meets the sky is my yearly summer view of the Cape Cod bay.
It’s a bittersweet view.
So many stories of life and love and joy and family have happened right there on the ocean sand between low and high tide.
And then?
There’s the story from that beach that I’ve never really shared before.
A story of loss.
A story full of sadness.
A story that brings me such pain that I tear up every time I try and write it down.
Even now—as my hands hover over the keyboard—I want to pull them away. I want to tell them not to type the words. I want to tell them it’s too hard and I don’t want to share and I don’t want to put the words on the page.
But this summer? This summer at the Cape something happened that was so amazing and so wonderful and so full of hope that it healed some of that devastating pain.
A story that started with this.
A blue hydrangea.
I don’t recall ever going to the Cape without hydrangeas.
It was one of those things that was ever-present in every summer along with Sun-In, The Love Boat, tank tops and Gloria Vanderbilt Jeans.
My father planted a tiny hydrangea bush along the side of our house and assumed that the sandy soil of Cape Cod would do the trick.
In sad news?
It didn’t.
It was probably the most pitiful hydrangea bush the Cape has ever seen. It really never bloomed and it was super leggy and generally uncooperative. One year the plant had bushes and bushes and bushes of leaves that showed up and we were all so hopeful.
But there wasn’t a single bloom anywhere in sight.
Despite everything, my father loved that hydrangea bush.
Hydrangeas were his favorite flower–especially the blue ones.
He was so proud of it.
He watered it and trimmed off the stalks that didn’t bloom and encouraged it. I think it was his favorite place to work out all his problems. At twilight, he would water the lawn and check on the yard…..
….and talk to the hydrangea bush.
They were long, lengthy conversations, told in confidence to an old friend. I was never really sure what he whispered or what was on his heart.
But I know that the hydrangea flowers heard every single word.
And then one day….suddenly….on a sunny afternoon on a summer day in late July at a picnic on this beach….
….my father began to struggle.
He said he didn’t feel good and that he was having trouble and told everyone he needed to leave the beach and go up to the house and rest.
But he never made it.
He collapsed and was rushed to a local hospital where they diagnosed him with a fatal brain aneurysm. He never regained consciousness. He never said goodbye. He never talked or laughed or grinned or made us feel like our family was the most special family in the entire universe ever again.
And six days later…
…the most wonderful, incredible hydrangea whisperer passed away.
I’m not sure that the hydrangea bush ever fully recovered. It turned into sticks with a few leaves.
After my father died no one really paid much attention to it.
No one watered it or trimmed it or whispered to it anymore.
We couldn’t.
Our hearts were too sad.
My husband planted some more hydrangeas in the front of the house and we closed the chapter on the hydrangea bush by the back door.
I thought it was the end.
I thought it was over.
Until.
Until this summer when I rounded the corner at the back door….
….and SAW THIS.
A BIG GIANT BLUE HYDRANGEA BUSH.
Full to the brim of hydrangea flowers.
Every branch.
Every stem.
Bursting to the brim with flowers. I couldn’t believe it. WHAT IN THE WORLD HAD HAPPENED?
It was as if my father knew. He knew this week in July was so challenging for all of us.
He knew his family was struggling.
He knew we needed a sign.
He knew we needed hope that he was still here among the rustling grass and the ocean breezes and the summer clouds floating by in the sky.
If I could have hugged that giant hydrangea bush, I would have.
Instead?
I did the next best thing.
I cut off half a dozen stems of those amazing incredible hydrangea blooms.
And when I filled the vase with the flowers and placed it in my room, I smiled quietly to myself and my heart gave a little leap of joy…..
….because another hydrangea whispering season had begun.
I miss you Dad.
And I always will.
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