Zinnia's Bathtub, page 2 It was largely an herb garden, full of heavily fragrant selections like rosemary, thyme, lavender, and a big bush of purple-flowering chives.  Rosemary is one of my favorites, and Thyme I cook with daily.  But I couldn't find Oregano anywhere, and it was the favorite of Zinnia's father.  I'd been to Smith's, Hayward's, even the grocers were sold out of it.  But I kept looking. The centrepiece was a rainbow procession of giant Zinnias right up the middle.  I placed a Lamb's Ear in front, they're always popular with children because each grey leaf is just as thick and fuzzy as a real baby lamb's.  I carefully planted a row of radishes along the back and then put bunches of violet Johnny Jump-Ups in the corners that spilled over the edge of the bathtub like waves, or tears. But even at this point, the tub still seemed half empty to me.  There were blank spaces everywhere, shadows of dark soil showed through the leaves, and all of the herbs I'd bought were just little seedlings.  Only the Zinnias were already at their full height, and they had an awkward legginess that was enhanced by the smallness of everything around them, making the whole thing seem more woody than the bushy green lushness I envisioned. I added some Dusty Millers that reminded me of Christine.  'Miller' being her maiden name and 'Dusty' -- well, that pretty much was for her house, and in a way, Christine herself, with her grey shimmering hair.  I was disappointed when not all of the radishes sprouted, there was a big gap right in the centre of the row.  So two Oriental looking liquorice plants filled up that spot, symbolizing my visit to Japan and the influence it had on my attraction to Oriental arts and cultures. It must have been about this time that I began making secret trips outside to visit the tub at night, and again in the mornings before anyone knew I was up.  Now it was getting fuller, bushing out in the warmth of the summer heat.  Every day a new Zinnia would open, revealing to me her new and perfect face, and I would be there to admire it.  Day after day, I slowly began to hear her voice out there.  I don't recall the first time it happened, only that I gradually came to find myself engaged in these full, silent conversations with The Tub.  Many times I would be walking through the house, arms full of groceries when I'd suddenly catch a glimpse of it out the window and I'd just drop everything and run out there to see her.  Not her - "it", I mean.  Of course. It. "It" to everyone else anyway, because only I knew she was in there.  I just began to realize that somehow, this bathtub garden held the spirit of my little daughter inside it.  I sensed her presence all around it.  It had silently become my memorial to her, a commemorative to what could have been.  I read beside it, drank my morning coffee beside it, I spent the afternoons laid out and roasting in the summer sun beside it.  The Oregano was eventually added too, it came as a donation from one of Christine's co-worker's who'd heard I'd been everywhere looking for it.  It really hadn't seemed complete without a tribute to him.  He would have loved her too after all.  And I had loved him also. I thought with the Oregano that it would finally feel complete.  But instead, only a new desire grew.  My desire to share this memorial, this miraculous gravesite, with Zinnia's dad.  He just had to see it.  He had to touch those crisp, papery Zinnia blooms, see those new leaves budding up like little puckered kisses, and the dainty yellow pistules that formed a halo in the centre of each sweet colourful face.  When I couldn't resist any longer, I told him about The Tub, and invited him to come to New Brunswick.  We wanted to share this together. Here he was, coming across Canada to see my herb garden.  We planned not only to see each other again, but to live together again.  Everything between us seemed to have fallen apart after we lost the baby.  But now he was moving here, for us, and for this. We weren't ready to try another pregnancy just yet, the pain was still too fresh from this botched attempt.  And we had never really grieved together.  It was finally time for us to do so. In the weeks before he arrived, more symbols for Zinnia were added.  'Heather', his mother's name, found on sale at Smith's 4 for a dollar.  These replaced the radishes when they ripened and were pulled.  And finally the crowning glory was chosen, a statue of a little ceramic Fairy girl, seated, with legs splayed around her to one side, with a small bird cradled in her tiny hands.  She has a crown of flowers in her hair and strewn all around her feet.  She wears an airy little nightgown.  She has large outspread butterfly wings and a peaceful, demure face with huge dark forgiving eyes, and a sad but beautiful and intriguing smile. I painted the raw ceramic gold at first, then highlighted her sheath, wings and crown in bisque. Zinnia had finally been immortalized. I placed that statue and replaced it so many times, looking for just the right spot.  It took several days, and who knows how many secret midnight trips out to The Tub.  I brought gallon after gallon of water, several times a day, my Aquarian water-bearing destiny finally come true.  And I always faithfully sat there with her until the water was gone, watching small pools form in the deep end where it was slower to be drank.  I'd pick off dried leaves, pull any new weeds that threatened, and just talk to her until feeding time was over and she'd drifted quietly off to sleep.  Every night.  We waited patiently to be reunited with Zinnia's dad as he made his cross-Canada trek by bus.  Soon we knew that we three would be together again and we'd become a family of sorts, after all.... he, me, and our dead little girl ...who was buried in porcelain, and remembered in a rainbow of strong papery blossoms. ~ back ~