Compost Studios

Guard within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

-- George Sand

Copyright 2008 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and Compost Studios. All rights reserved.

It’s a gray Sunday afternoon and the doorbell rings. She makes her child answer it, expecting it’s a neighborhood friend, but it’s not.

She hears, “Can I speak to your parents?”

She leaves the blue glow of the computer, conscious that both her face and clothes are rumpled, her hair uncombed. She is bringing her private self to the front door.

As soon as she sees the two young men in crisp white shirts, ties, and black pants, she knows they are from the Church of Latter Day Saints.

She wonders why the Mormons don’t rule the world because their missionaries are so much cuter than everyone else’s, but she doesn’t say this to the earnest young men at her door, one with dark wavy hair, hazel eyes, and perfect teeth, the other with bangs, brown eyes, and the easy smile of the boys that used to play softball on Friday nights in her hometown.

They ask her how she’s doing and she says OK.

Then they rephrase the question, say it a bit more slowly: “You had a good day--really?”

And she sees the sincerity in their eyes, their unlined faces, their unblemished cheeks, and she decides to tell them about the cracks in the basement wall, her broken foundation, the influx of muddy water. No, she did not have a good day.

And they surprise her by immediately saying, “Do you need help?”

She knows--she knows if she says she needs help they will roll up those perfectly creased white sleeves and descend into the messy dimness of her life.

And she isn’t even pretty or young or crying—all the things that normally elicit chivalry from men.

She stares down at her scruffy sheepskin slippers. She hides her hands in the pocket of her big sweatshirt. She hates that her glasses are magnifying her eyes in all their bleary weariness.

"No," she says, offering them a smile. "I don’t need help at the moment. I just need it to stop raining." 

They ask questions and listen to her answers. She confides about leaving Europe, the toughness of the move tempered by the joy of the new house, and then the terrible discovery, the financial dilemma, the breach of trust.

They don’t look bored. They don’t interrupt.

The boy with the bangs shares a story from his hometown of a similar predicament, a house with a cellar that the buyers didn't even know about, a hidden cellar that threatened to bring the whole house down. She feels the dark pull of this dirty space, can smell the dank air, the stench of secrets.

They ask how her walls and foundation can be fixed, and she tells them how everything will be dug up: the very ground they’re standing on, the flowers that are blooming on every side, the flagstone sidewalk, the view she adores. All the beauty, torn apart.

They nod with sympathy. Their black pants are so dark against her white porch under the gray sky. With all her faults revealed, they open a conversation about Jesus, and she listens because they have listened to her and because it is comforting to bask in the warmth of their youth, their innocence, their faith.

Once upon a time, she was like they are.

Once upon a time.

They ask her how Jesus manifests himself in her life and without thinking she says, “I’m still here… I’m still here.”

But that’s another story, too complicated, too personal to share, so she quickly retreats to a safer topic.

She says that she is an Episcopalian, and they ask her what that means to her.

And that’s when she lies to them, claiming membership in a local church she has not attended. She hasn't been to church since she arrived in America months ago. 

Her untruth hangs in the air and pings their radar. It seems they're testing her veracity when they ask, “Where is St. XXXXX’s? Is it near here?”

Yes, she says, it’s downtown.

She doesn’t say, “It’s the church with the Tiffany window, tall steeple, and gay rights activists.”

But it is.

These Mormon boys seem so pure and she feels so shabby, her sins clinging to her like burrs on a sweater. Lying about church, unwilling to admit how lost she is,  how the church located only a mile away feels like it’s in an alternative universe and exerts no gravity on her.

They continue to talk to her about God.

Then, repentant, she shares a big truth: the work of her faith now is to forgive, to let go, to move forward after being betrayed, to trust again.

And they know it’s about more than the basement.

Or maybe she just imagines that they understand. They're only boys. But then she thinks, they're old enough to have had their hearts broken.

They once again offer to help her. "Can we  move plants before the excavators come and put them back later?"

And she is touched by their willingness to try and salvage her life and restore it to some semblance of normality, some former state of beauty.

They add a bit conspiratorially: “If we do some service hours, then we get to get out of these shirts and ties.”

She laughs then. “When you see how dirty the work is, you’ll be wishing for a tie instead.”

They give her a brochure with their names and phone numbers on it and tell her to call if she needs them.

She smiles. She thanks them. She wishes them a good evening.

The door clicks shut.

Her family ambushes her as soon as they leave.

Her smirking husband says, “Why didn’t you invite them in and offer them a beer or cup of coffee?”

Her kids are impressed that these young men were willing to help strangers. She tells them they did that because they’re Christians. She then gives them a 60-second summary of Joseph Smith and the Mormon faith. She tells them all the young men in the church spend a year as missionaries.

Her daughter says, “Sounds cool but they shouldn’t HAVE to go door to door in order to belong to the church.”

Her husband says, “I heard you tell them we’re Episcopalians! I bet they’re writing our address in a little black book with a note that says, ‘Family here is condemned to hell.’"

She laughs.

But she holds onto the brochure they gave her, the one with Jesus cradling a lamb on the cover.

She’s holding onto their faith.

Holding onto their promises.

Holding on.

May 19, 2008

In 1972, my sister Louise was planning a big adventure. A 24-year-old secretary, she had saved up a sizable amount of her modest income so that she could travel Europe for a month with her best friend. In the spring, she bought a set of Samsonsite luggage, and it came with a bonus gift, a little sprig of a miniature orange tree.

My sister Louise gave the orange tree to my mother Louise, who had a knack with houseplants. It grew from a six inch stick to several feet in height under my mother’s loving care. Much to our delight, it burst forth with sweet-smelling white flowers followed by oranges the size of walnuts. It seemed a bit magical, this tree, producing baby citrus fruit in our house.

When my parents moved from New York to Virginia, my mother managed to move the orange tree too, and it kept blooming in its new location in my mother Louise’s sunny kitchen. It was ten years old and thriving there in 1982 when my sister Louise died after a long battle with cancer.

It was twenty years old when my mother Louise died of cancer ten years later, in 1992. Still in the kitchen, it was a bittersweet reminder of the two Louises.

My husband, an avid gardener who shared a special bond with my mother, loaded the tree (and most of my mother’s other houseplants) up in his pickup and transported them to our home in Virginia, about 180 miles away. He pruned the little tree, occasionally fertilized it, treated it to a special citrus tree “cocktail” once or twice a year, and treasured the way its blossoms perfumed the air in the winter. When our children came along, they too delighted in the novelty of miniature oranges being produced at their house.

When the time came for us to move to Belgium, we gave away most of our houseplants, but we couldn’t possibly give away the tree that reminded us of the two Louises. The orange tree in its enormous white pot was driven 180 miles to western Virginia and put in the care of my big brother.

It was 2005, and the tree was now 33 years old.

Maybe in a stroke of what Buddhists refer to as “interbeing,” the tree remembered that my sister Louise had only been given 33 years on the planet.

Maybe it missed my mother.

Maybe it missed us.

Whatever the cause, despite my brother’s diligent care, the tree started dropping leaves and losing its vitality after we moved.

E-mails were exchanged between my husband, the master gardener in Belgium, and my brother, keeper of the family tree,  in Virginia. The Virginia Tech extension office was consulted for advice. My husband shared the recipe for the special "cocktail" my mother had fed the tree with. All sorts of actions were taken, and my brother and his wife were more than a little dismayed when they had to tell us that despite all their efforts, the tree had just died.

All that remained...

They moved the dead tree outdoors, under the watchful eyes of the statue of St. Francis, and my brother, who had saved some of the seeds from the last harvest of oranges, planted them in small pots and watched them sprout and grow. It was my family’s way of remembering my sister and my mother, of keeping them alive in our hearts.

The baby orange tree, grown from seed 

Maybe it was that act of faith.

Maybe it was a manifestation of our hope of one day seeing the two Louises again.

Maybe it was further evidence of “interbeing” and mystical connection between ancestors and future generations.

Whatever the cause, my brother and his wife witnessed a miracle on their front porch: the “dead” orange tree, now 36 years old, came back to life.

Somehow, out of all the dry brown wood and a long season of nothingness came new green leaves.

 A bit scraggly, but alive

Today the orange tree is once again under my husband’s TLC.

And the baby orange tree? My kids consider it their own.

See, not all family heirlooms are silver and gold--some are green and leafy and offer lessons in resilience.

I'm keeping faith that the tree, like our family, will bloom again and bear fruit.

May 9, 2008

Recently a close friend said, "I have faith in you. You're the only saint I have."

Those words of encouragement inspired this piece of art.