PATIO PARADISE (Nursing Home Life part 4)

A few years ago our daughter Ruth looked out over the floral profusion on our veranda and front yard and declared: “You people have a flower problem!” We laughed. She meant: “You have a ridiculous number of flowers out there.” I am happy to report that there is good news on this front. We still have the flower problem, only it’s smaller now. A flower problem, so it is said, occupies the space you give to it. On a magnificent June morning I step out on our Laurier House patio. The scent of flowers is positively intoxicating. Deep breaths now, deep breaths. What am I smelling this morning? Is it one of the two varieties of stocks, the alyssum, the bright yellow pansies kissed by the sun? It is probably not the heliotrope, whose fragrant best will emerge some time nearer to mid-day, and it’s not the roses which won’t be open for another day or two. It wouldn’t be the fuchsia or the begonia. They specialize in beauty rather than fragrance. Whichever it is, it smells fantastic! Small patios, I say to myself, have some advantages over large ones. The scents collect and support each other. Then they rush at you in joyous welcome when you step over the doorsill. It’s our second June at Laurier House, our first June with a patio. The two-bedroom suite we occupied last June did not have a patio. So we moved at the end of winter when this one became available. For people who have long been known for a flower problem, this is a definite improvement. Our living room opens to a cozy patch of concrete where I now pet my pansies and stroke my stocks. Tucked in the elbow between the front of the living room and the side of my protruding bedroom, our little patio peeks out through the spaces between the evergreens that shelter it from the bustle of the walk way and parking lot beyond. It’s cool enough to embrace a buffet breakfast on hot summer mornings; warm enough at mid-day to enjoy audio books on cooler days; shaded against the heat of the late afternoon. You can enjoy a glass of wine with friends there before supper. How, I wonder, did I ever get through last summer without this tiny refuge? Last summer this suite belonged to a married couple named Paul and May. I would have been fiercely jealous of them if I had known how a moment out there could transport me into the state of paradise. Unbeknownst to us, they were avid gardeners. Not limited to flowers, they had bonsai trees out there, and tomatoes Paul passed away last winter and his wife May moved out. Without Paul to care for, she no longer needed Laurier House. They left us not only a patio, but a supply of pots and fertilizer that gradually revealed themselves as the spring sun melted the snowbanks. They also left us a social bonus that we had not anticipated. To our surprise, the staff seem as excited about our patio as we are. If we happen to be out there when they come in on an errand, they join us and stop for a chat outside. If they don’t have a job to do, they might stop by anyway. First they admire our flowers. “Just look at that basket of yellow! Oh, what fabulous roses! Let me look at the tag so I can get one with those beautiful colours.” Then they reminisce about Paul and May. “Paul and May had this patio full of garden,” they say. “They had so many tomatoes.” Our hearts are warmed by the attachment they obviously feel. It’s like a promise that we too will be fondly recalled. If they come upon us having breakfast out there, or listening to an audio book, they smile with delight and linger a few moments to celebrate the day. Happiness in this place is a reciprocal process where all parties make contributions to the well-being of the others. I step out onto the patio a dozen times a day, sometimes for an hour with David, most of the time by myself for a moment of pleasure. Most of the days have been warm enough to allow David to spend some time out there too. “I wouldn’t be using this patio if you weren’t here,” he says to me, and he is right about that. He would not be able to move his wheelchair over the ramp and through the door. But we are a team, as we have been since the spring of 1972. Over the years our team member responsibilities have shifted depending on the circumstances. Of all the jobs I currently do, the act of guiding David over the ramps to have breakfast among the flowers is my definite favourite.