The Japanese Maple

By Shivani Shrivastav

I saw her again. She was wearing dark slacks and a loose top she was blowing leaves off her lawn and into a corner with a blower. I had been seeing her daily for almost six months now, mostly in her front yard or her porch, or sometimes slowly driving to or from her house. She also seemed to be of Indian descent, as I could make out from her features, and as was confirmed when once her Amazon package that was wrongly delivered to our house.  When I had gone to return it, she had been pleasantly surprised, telling me that it was an expensive coffee maker she had ordered, and not everyone would have sought out the rightful owner.

That’s how we got talking. After that, I would always wave to her — when I saw her doing her yard work, on my evening walks or when either of us drove by, on our way to get groceries. In the spring she would plant colourful flower beds, and could often be seen cleaning and watering them. On sunny days, she would be mowing her lawn or talking to the college kids who sometimes came to do her yard work. In autumn, I saw her raking out leaves, putting the garden waste into large brown disposal bags and decorating her porch with colourful wreaths of maple leaves and berries.  Winter saw her blowing fresh snow off her porch and lawn and clearing and salting her driveway, so that the garage pathway would be clear for her to take out her car. She would often be seen driving to and from the local grocery stores, where I met her at times. Gradually, as we got friendlier, she invited me over for tea and then later for potluck lunches and sometimes just for sharing something special she had made that day, or a new recipe she had tried.

I had a hectic schedule, with frequent out of town work trips. She would often tell me, “Tara, you eat very less! You should take care of yourself; you should put on a little weight.” and more along the same lines. My usual replies were, “Mrs. Sen, I can’t cook yummy food like yours!” or “I don’t usually have time to cook!” accompanied by an indulgent smile. Of course, these reasons were true, but there was also the fact that I really did not enjoy cooking. I would much rather spend my time reading a good book or indulging my leisure time activity of writing poetry, than slaving over a hot oven or cooktop! She, on the other hand, was an excellent cook and baker, having picked up various tips and tricks for making the most mouth-watering dishes out of almost the most basic ingredients. She shared these with her book club members in their weekly meetups as well as with some lucky neighbours, me being one of them.

One day, as we sat talking on her porch, surrounded by the sweet smells of the lush lavender growing in one of a flower beds, she shared, “I came to Canada with my husband, after my marriage in 1988. Two years later, my brother and my uncle shifted here to, along with their families. Those early years were beautiful. Although we didn’t have much back then, we were happy, happy to have each other in a new land. Many of us were not fluent in English, coming from rural Indian backgrounds. We practised with each other, to gain confidence in social interactions as gradually we enlarged our social circles. Once everyone started on their  respective jobs, they also shifted to other places. One of my sons is now in California, the older one. The younger one is in Vancouver.”

We were interrupted by the barking of her tiny wire-haired terrier who was fiercely protective of her. Mostly, he was almost like a therapy dog, sitting on her lap, or somewhere near her, where she could reach out and pet him often. Right now, he had seen a delivery guy approaching the house. She took a parcel from him, offered it to Mickey, her tiny self-appointed protector, to sniff and judge okay, for that was her practice, which she said made him feel included in all her day-to-day activities and interactions.

Placing it aside, she thanked the delivery guy with a smile. Sitting down on one of the two cherry red Adirondack chairs on her porch, she told me, “Nowadays I prefer having as much delivered as I can: it’s easier, particularly for the stuff not readily available at Costco or Home Depot.” I could only imagine how difficult it must be for a lady of advanced years living by herself.

“I go to Toronto almost once a week and also to one of the farmer’s markets nearby. If you want, you could come along if you have some work or want to buy something from there. I could even bring it for you if you so wish.”

Although it was not my intention to cause her any kind of pain, what I had said had seemingly touched her, for as she looked up at me, she had tears shining in her eyes. “Thank you, my dear, I can’t tell you how much it means to me. It has been more than five years that I have been by myself now. Usually it’s okay, but some days are just harder. When Sudhakar passed away I lost my best and oldest friend. He used to tell me – Maya, you should make more friends; you should have your own life too.”

I do have friends here, my book club people too, plus some relatives living in Toronto and some other nearby places, but it’s not the same.”

“I understand”, I could only pat her hand helplessly, wishing I could do more. Going with the change of mood, we picked up the tea things as the breeze turned colder and went inside. It was nearly autumn again and the October evenings were getting quite chilly. The red, orange and yellow autumn foliage had its  own grace and beauty, but I would miss the long summer evenings, when I could just sit out on the patio or enjoy working in the backyard garden or water the front lawn barefoot. Not to mention, the beautiful flowers summer brought. Mrs. Sen, or rather, Maya, as she had instructed me to call her, had beautiful gardens, both at the front and back of her house. These she tended meticulously, taking care of her perennials through the change of seasons and making sure to  plant various varieties of seasonal flowers and shrubs. She had two gorgeous Japanese maples in her front yard, and had a beautiful weeping willow in her back yard that fascinated me. The flowerbeds were populated with multiple herbs like lavender, thyme, sage and rosemary, as well as flowers like peonies, roses, pansies, violets, lilies, hydrangea etc. She also had some beautiful shrubs and flowering trees like lilacs and magnolias. It was a veritable dream for the most discerning of botanists, at the very least!

As we entered the house, I realised that this was the first time I had been inside her home. Somehow, most of our conversations till date had been outside, on our patios or in one of our backyards, while one of us worked in the garden. She had successfully transmitted her enthusiasm for flora to me too. This was a first for us. As I placed the tray of biscuits and cookies on the kitchen counter, I noticed the wall next to it filled with lots of pictures — pictures of Tara with her family and of her visits back to India and their travels to various places. I could see pictures in front of the Taj Mahal, the Notre Dame, the Sydney Harbour and more.

“Oh, these are so beautiful! It seems you travelled quite a bit!”

“Oh yes, when the children were young, we travelled during the winter and summer breaks. Mostly to India, sometimes to America and Mexico, sometimes to more exotic places like Egypt, Bulgaria etc. It was only when the children started their own careers and moved away that we stopped our frequent travels.”

She went quiet for a bit, looking off into the distance, reliving the past perhaps.  Maybe a past that brought back bittersweet memories. I felt a little guilty for having asked her about the pictures. Some moments later, I took her leave, wishing her well and promising to meet her soon after having mastered the new biscuit recipe she had shared.

As fall turned to winter and I returned from some work-related travel, I thought of her as soon as I had settled back into my regular routines. I decided to meet her in the evening, but being severely jet-lagged, had to postpone it a little.

I finally went after three days. I noticed that her driveway was freshly shovelled and salted. As I rang the bell, I admired the beautiful wreath on her door, with her trademark red winter berries and green ribbons. I knew that nearer to Christmas, she would add some striped candy canes to it.

I heard some shuffling steps and she came to the door.

“Oh hello Tara!  It’s been quite a while! Were you out of town?”, came her cheerful greeting.

She did seem a little frailer to me, and I noticed her favouring one leg more than the other.

“Hello! Yes, I came back from a ten-day work trip three days ago. Sorry I couldn’t visit earlier. How have you been? Is anything the matter with your leg?”

“Yes, I fell down and hurt myself. There was a patch of black ice in the driveway. Although I had cleared and salted it, there were more flurries that day, followed by some rainfall. When I came back from visiting a friend, who dropped me back to my place, she had to hurry back as she had received a phone call, and I got down from the car and had barely taken a step when I slipped and fell. I hurt my leg and my back. Worse was that after the fall, the ice was so slippery that I couldn’t get back up. I walked like a four-legged animal for a few steps till some neighbours who had seen me fall rushed out and helped me back up and took me inside the house. This was two days ago. Since then I have been resting. Yesterday I got groceries delivered here, once the snow stopped.”

Feeling bad that I had not been there for her at such a time, I escorted her inside and shut the door. I gave her a little Reiki healing and made her a little tea after the session. We sat and chatted for a little while, and then I came back.

As I was on the way back her word echoed in my head, “No one knows what life might bring. I had never thought I’d be alone at this age. Back in India, people say that a lady who has sons is very fortunate. Well, I have two sons. When I called them, they said that they were sorry to hear about my fall, but they would not be able to come till the weekend. For the first two days, during which it snowed heavily, the neighbours who had seen me fall were kind enough to bring food over, two times a day. I am fortunate to have good people around me.”

I reflected on my own situation. I was separated, with no chances or desire of a reconciliation. Having decided that I did not need anyone in my life who had the power to hurt me, I had walled myself off, interacting briefly with people and that too, only to the extent needed. Very rarely did I venture out of my comfort zone;  letting people within my walls was a risk which I could not bear to take. Maya was the first person in the last three years that I had spoken to with such an open heart. Maybe it was because I felt such comfort in her presence and understood subconsciously that she would never hurt me.

When I thought about her, I remembered all her acts of kindness – the food drives for the homeless, the collection drives for clothes for refugees she ran, offering to collect all the donated clothes at her  house and later on sort through them for distribution, her gardening and plantation drives etc. This year, on Canada Day, she had gifted many trees and plants to her neighbours, as per their choice and need. I had received a beautiful Japanese maple, a sapling from her one of her own trees. She had said that the trees were saplings created from the tree that she had planted in her first home in Canada. The sapling she gave me looked very promising and would definitely turn out to be a beautiful and healthy tree, vibrant with its deep red leaves. Whenever I looked at it, I was reminded of Mrs Sen’s spirit and her welcoming smile.

Through the next few days, I kept a regular check on Mrs. Sen. She recovered quite well and was soon back to her usual tasks.

One day as I came to her place to meet her before going away on another work trip, she opened the door with a big smile. I smiled and asked her, “Wow! You are really glowing today! What’s up?”

“I am going to visit my son in California. He is coming over the next week for some work to Canada. After that, I plan to take him to see our beautiful Niagara-on-the-Lake, then I’ll accompany him back to California. I plan to stay there for almost a month.”

“That’s great news! You haven’t meet him for such a long time!”

“Yes! I’m so excited I will get to meet the grandchildren again!”

The rest of my visit passed in discussions of her upcoming trip. I promised to take care of her mail and plants while she was away, then left.

When I came back from my office trip, she had already left for California. I dutifully collected her mail, laying it aside on my hall table to give to her once she was back. I took special care of her two red maples, knowing that  she was especially fond of them. They stood to either side of her driveway, forming a delicate arch over her garage door.

The season changed again and spring blossomed, bringing with it fresh leaves on all the plants. The Japanese maples sprang fresh with vibrant leaves. I liked overseeing her yard work, paying the college students who came to clean it every week from the fund she had left with me when she met the last time.

Sitting there on her porch, reading a book while waiting for the boys to finish, I often looked at the trees, which seemed like two sentient sentinels. Now lush, they merrily waved their branches with their cherry-red leaves in the spring breeze.

“How happy Maya would be when she comes back and looks at them again!” She had shared some photos of her son’s house in California; it was a condo — no garden or even house plants; ‘they didn’t have the time for frivolities’, as her son had said.

“That is the one thing I’m really going to miss when I’m there — my garden. These plans that I choose every year with care and the perennials are like my children too. I love them all — the daisies, the sunflowers, the weeping willow at the other end of my lawn, the many seasonal flowers I like to keep in my window planters, all of them! I’m really going to miss them all!

“Don’t worry, you’re coming back before spring will have passed. You’ll still have your lilacs in bloom when you come back, and your begonias, petunias and lilies would all be in full bloom too.”

She smiled but seemed a little unconvinced.

That day, she was supposed to return. She had been in the habit of brining me warm meals the days I returned from one of my trips, so that I would not have to cook immediately after having journeyed, and also to ensure that I ate well. Taking a leaf out of her book, I thought I would return the favour and cooked a hearty soup, along with some homemade pasta. Balancing the bag with the food, I rang her bell but receiving no reply, thought maybe she was sleeping and came back, thinking that I would try again a little later, or maybe the next day.

The same thing happened the next day and the next; no reply to the doorbell. I had tried calling her cell phone, but it always went to voicemail. The three messages I had sent were delivered but not answered. Now I was truly worried, but there was little I could do except wait. Maybe she had extended her stay, because she certainly didn’t seem to be in the house. Although the lights turned on and off, I knew it was the automated system I had helped her install before leaving, so that the house would not seem empty.

I continued the upkeep of her garden in the meantime, hoping that she would show up any day and  sit blissfully once again, in her lovingly created garden. I missed her more than I thought I would. She had taught me a lot, even without my knowing.

Feeling a little bit like a stalker, I went to her Facebook profile and also the profile on the neighbourhood app, and found her sons’ profiles and dropped them both messages related to the wellbeing of Mrs. Sen. After a week, I still hadn’t received any replies. Almost a month passed. One day, I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign put up in her garden, right in front of one of the maples. Shocked, I called the agent’s number written on the board and was told that her son had made the decision to sell the house. All her stuff would be going to Goodwill as both her sons had no intention of coming back there to live.

I was broken-hearted that they cared so little for the place hey had grown up in, and which was so loved by their mother. She would never again get to see her garden. The flowers were all there; the garden still bloomed, but its creator had gone.

Two days later, I got a letter from her in my mailbox. It was dated a month and a half ago, so as per  my calculations, must have been written mere days before she passed away. In it, she had thanked me for taking such good care of her garden in her absence. Showering me with love and blessings, entreating me to take good care of myself, she ended her letter with something that surprised me. She mentioned that there was a key enclosed; indeed, there was a small but intricate key in one corner of the envelope, that must have slipped back when I pulled out the letter. She had written that it was the key to a post office box in her name. She had said, “If I do not return, please collect whatsoever is there and distribute it to all our neighbours. It is nothing that my sons would value, as I have set aside all else for them, except this mail box and its contents, that I will to my neighbours, who have loved and supported me through my last years.”

With tears in my eyes, I clutched the key to my heart and remembered her love for all her neighbours, sent across the border, across the bounds of life itself.

The next day, I went to the post office to collect the gifts. To my surprise, they were heirloom seeds, along with carefully collected and preserved flower bulbs, both of which she had painstakingly collected over the years. I remembered her getting some from as far as Vancouver and Montreal; some were tulip bulbs from Holland. Coming back home with the precious living gifts, I framed a message to post on the neighbourhood app. Hitting send, I looked out of my window. My beautiful Japanese maple was dancing in the breeze; her blessings and legacy would live on, spreading to the four winds.

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Shivani Shrivastav is a Reiki Master and Osho sannyasin. By profession she’s a UK CGI Chartered Secretary and a Governance Professional/CS. She loves meditation, photography, writing and French jazz.

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