Tiger Lilies

I never thought much of them. To me, they were just some tall and ugly wildflowers in my least favourite colour. Orange. But my father saw Tiger lilies differently. They served another purpose for him.

He’d summon us to the side of our house on the first day of school, the place where unkempt foliage thrived. It was the stuff he wouldn’t bother tending to, though we’d find him there without fail on the Tuesday after Labour Day. “Bring me the scissors,” he’d say, eyeing those lilies. We usually found the pruning shears in the garage, buried among a pile of gardening paraphernalia in a beat up milk crate. Dad would be waiting for us pacing before them and holding out his hand impatiently to begin the cutting.

After he was satisfied with his clippings, Dad would wrap the lilies in aluminum foil and hand us each a bundle. “Give this to your new teacher. A good impression goes a long way,” he’d finish.

We could have brought wild daisies or dandelions to school. It wouldn’t have mattered because our father was hoping to instill in us something more than just gifting someone with a piece of our garden. He was sharing the practice of a simple act of kindness. “It’s the thought that counts,” he’d say.

Tiger lilies are known to grow in moist to wet soils. They are commonly found around ditches but since they are easy to grow, even a carefree gardener can produce a stunning grouping in the plainest of landscaping. That was Dad.

Our father would mow the grass, weed, and trim the oversized evergreen on our front lawn. He’d also plant the odd annual and periodically cut back the rose bushes.  Gardening for Dad was by trial and error. Except for those darned orange things.

Each September the snip, gather and wrap routine occurred without fail. Until we started high school. Thank goodness Dad knew his ritual wasn’t cool anymore.

Whether those lilies made an impression or not, this  act of “giving” I learned early on served me well. It was just a mere snippet of what our father taught us, which seemed trivial, but wasn’t. And the motivation behind all those cuttings revealed only a glimpse of who he was and what he hoped to teach us.  

As a school-aged kid I didn’t spend much thought pondering the “lesson.”  I’d walk to school, loaded down with new supplies, my lunch, and that flaming bunch of orange. Red-faced, I’d pass the bundle of weeds, as I thought of them, to my teacher. She would smile politely, and I hoped I’d never see them again.

Five decades later, I now sit at my father’s bedside. He has hours now, and likely won’t last the night. I try to think of something happy to face the deluge of grief coming. And what readily comes to mind are the many lessons we received from him, mostly begrudgingly, like his tiger lily ritual.

On Saturdays, after spending a whole day at the ski hill, he’d plead with us to sing in the car on the way home. My brother and I were exhausted, but he told us the radio wouldn’t keep him awake, but our voices would. So we relented and sang a repertoire of silly songs he’d taught us. And he joined us too. Those drives revealed a lighter side of Dad we didn’t see very often, but became another way to connect with him.

We were never to complain about the food Mom put on the table. Both our parents’ families faced hardships during the Second World War, so we were to be grateful for what we had. We didn’t have to like the meal Mom cooked, but we had to eat it. “Some families don’t have much, so be thankful,” Dad would point out. Of course, neither of us had any life-threatening allergies, so that was that.

And even with his tiny snow pusher, Dad would cheerfully clear off our neighbour’s driveways after a storm hit. Eventually those neighbours bought their own machine, but sadly, didn’t reciprocate when his pusher broke down. You’d think with their less than uncharitable ways, Dad would stop helping out, but he didn’t.

With Mom’s recent death, I was reliving the deep sadness I felt with another parent passing. I sat with my father and held onto his frail hand. “It’s too soon,” I thought to myself.

I felt the warmth of the spring day seeping inside the room. The curtains were drawn, but a sliver of daylight crept in, reminding me of life beyond the walls where my father lay.

I knew what was coming. It had happened with Mom. He would soon begin that separation, of not responding to my voice and then to my touch. I tightened my grip on his hand. I wanted my father to know, “I’ve got this.” I wanted to hold his hand as long as I could. I told him I loved him. I’ll never know for sure if he heard me, but I’d like to believe he did.

It didn’t take long for a numb feeling to fill my sadness and grief when Dad left us.

I brace myself as I pull open the door to the flower shop. The scent of fresh-cut flowers is comforting. I know Dad had often been to a place like this. For even while those orange plants ruled our garden, carnations, roses, and the odd bird of paradise adorned our home on birthdays, anniversaries, or any other occasion our father would find a reason to bring Mom flowers.

I remember how Mom would remove the wrapping and hold each stem like some fragile treasure. She’d then bend over the petals to take in their fragrance and place them gently in one of her glass vases.

I realized with a cutting sadness that with his early dementia and Mom’s rapid progression of cancer, Dad wasn’t himself. Finding a fresh bouquet at their tiny condo was rare. He increasingly fretted over Mom’s disease and the way it consumed her. It seemed to consume him as well. In spite of all this, he faithfully tended to the orchids in their solarium, a sharp contrast to his indifference for those wild lilies on the side of our old family home.

After Mom died, I became Dad’s loyal companion. Together, we reminisced over family photos and shared many meals. Other times, we just sat quietly. Even when exhausted, I still went to see him. “No regrets,” I’d tell my husband on the day of Dad’s funeral.

I decided the memorial wreaths were too traditional. Instead, I chose gold roses, purple stock, and white Fuji spider mums, a dramatic and bold statement to honor my last living parent.

When Dad ordered the marker, he made sure it had a retractable vase so there would always be a place to leave Mom flowers.  He’d shuffle carefully from the parked car to her grave, balancing himself as he stepped onto the uneven patches of grass, all the while tightly grasping his package of roses. Arriving at last, he’d announce: “I’m here, darling.” He stood, hunched over, trying to compose himself, but couldn’t. Then he reached for the cloth hanky, always a constant in his pockets since I could remember, and wiped his tears away.

“Why did you leave me? I’m all alone now.” He cried those words out loud one day, and I thought I’d never recover from hearing them. All I could do was bite my lip hard as I wept silently beside him. I needed to comfort him while shrouding my own grief. I hope he knew, as we stood together in the quiet that I was with him.

Over time Dad’s visits to the cemetery left him inconsolable for days. The time between visits became longer to lessen Dad’s grief and pain. It was a delicate dance I had to learn all over again on every trip there.

My trips to the grave still aren’t without sadness. But now my parents rest together.

As another summer nears its end, there’s a slight breeze and the air is growing cooler every day. It’s almost sweater weather, but not quite.

Outside, my husband snips a single tiger lily from our garden. I had been checking on them for a few days now as they danced a delicate waltz against the back fence. I thought about Dad and that darned flower and knew I couldn’t waste a perfectly good bloom, especially today. It was, after all Mom’s birthday.

This flower did not have the same line in its petals as with most lilies.  Instead, the orange freckles and coloring were somewhat faded. In hindsight, I should have picked it earlier. But that didn’t matter.

I held the orange beauty housed in a water tube all the way to the cemetery, careful not to squeeze too tightly in case I crushed the stalk. But wildflowers are hardy.

Unlike my father, I walked easily over the lumpy ground until I reached the spot. I pulled lightly on the stem to release the cutting and arranged it in the vase. I wouldn’t see the other two buds eventually open, but that was okay.

There’s a part of me I leave behind each time I’m there. After a prayer, I place my hands over their names. In an instant, my life with them comes flashing back in a thousand slices. My heart aches.

But the tinge of orange is comforting and I was putting a familiar flower to good use. He would have approved.

“Grab the stalk firmly and cut on an angle. Even those things have a place in the world.”

I could still see him, bent over those lilies, snipping away with precision, and surveying the results of his work.

View All Stories By Jackie Kierulf