The Band Must Play On

This daylily, THE BAND PLAYED ON by Patrick Stamile, is a favorite of mine and a sentimental marker of one of the best periods of my former marriage of almost thirty-two years.  It was in mid-June in 2008 when this flower first bloomed in my garden.  The colors were just like this.

I brought the blossom home to San and placed it on her dresser where she could see it from her bed.  It was there in the small shrine she had created with pictures of her mother and father when she was a small child and they were still a couple.  San's life energy was ebbing away much like a tide recedes from an ocean beach. 

We didn't expect her dying time to be one of our best times, but that's the way things turned out.  Our teamwork was perfect.  Since she knew there wasn't a future any more, she was able to let go and leave the future to me.  I was able to devote myself to her needs.  She trusted me.

She entered a tranquil zone and enjoyed the messages from her friends and students, who knew her time was down to a few days.  She slept more often, and one afternoon she lapsed into the final sleep.  I became "The Band" who had to play on, and so I played on, uplifted by the memory of what we had just lived.  Every spring I recall what was going on with us in 2008.

Every autumn I recall the miracle that was the correspondence that grew up suddenly between Kathy Wofford and me, and the intense courtship of words and thoughts.  San encouraged me to marry again, as I knew I would want to, and Kathy is the blessing I earned with a long marriage to San.

Kathy is a hybridizer, too.  This morning we both gasped at the glorious color of Curt Hanson's FEEL MY HEARTBEAT.  There are times when you look at a flower's size, form, and color and you can imagine the thrill Curt Hanson must have felt when he first laid eyes on this as a seedling.

Here's one I had to buy for Kathy this spring.  She has a cat named Ginger who rests on her stomach and stares at her when we watch movies.  This is Rich Howard's PAWPRINTS ON MY HEART.

Kathy loves to study the various daylilies in our big collection.  This one in "my" block of breeders is going to be shared!  She loves lavender and loves unruffled faces, so Steve Moldovan's WIZARD'S WAND is just the thing for her.

Me, I like fizz and pop on the face of a flower.  Here's Patrick Stamile's RAZZLE DAZZLE CANDY this morning.  It's hard not to stop and stare when this is open.

"How was I to know there was a party goin' on?"  That song line came to mind just now.  This has "Bobby Darin attitude."  One with more restraint in terms of fizz is Luddy Lambertson's BLUE HIPPO, which is not big enough here to deserve the name.  I think of it as a "Blue Sweet Thing."

My bet is that next year if I leave it alone it will gain hippo status. 

It's funny how people name things.  Bonnie and Stan Holley must know a runner because they have named flowers HEART AT REST and RANDALL THE RUNNER, pictured here.  I imagine Randall makes a BIG impression to have such a bold flower as his namesake!

Unrelated to running, but concerned with the journey of life, is this charming flower by Karol Emmerich, FINISH THE RACE. It's not up to speed or size yet because I moved it a month ago.  Even so, the energy of the center is what this flower is about, and what my memory of 2008 is about.