In this episode, Jim talks about gardening and aging.
Podcast Transcription:
WRVO Producer Mark Lavonier:
This podcast is one in a series titled, From the Soil with Sollecito, hosted by lifetime senior certified landscape professional Jim Sollecito of Sollecito Landscaping Nursery, Hallock Hill Road, Syracuse. These commentaries focus on landscape management practices that use only natural products and methods, safe for the environment, and that bring beauty to the landscape. And now Jim Sollecito.
Jim Sollecito:
My 92-year-old mother Louise passed away a year ago, which has given me time for reflection. She was quite happy her last months at St. Camillus Nursing Home, wheeling her chair through the hallways. They referred to her as "the Mayor." She made the same new friends every day and started to recognize that her dinner time and bedtime were becoming dangerously close to each other. When she knew it was her time—and she really did—she gave away her favorite window plant to a nurse, pushed the clutch in, and coasted home. My sister and I were right there with her and escorted her through.
In her own way, she was a force of nature, a gardener through and through. Born on Groundhog Day 1932 on the kitchen table at her family farm in DeLancey because the doctor couldn’t make it through the snowstorm, things started out tough and never really got easier until the end. In her lifetime, she endured the death of her husband, daughter, and granddaughter. Tough rows to hoe, but she persevered. Growing up, she enjoyed her weekly bath after milking the cows, conserving water from a well that should have been dug deeper. She was class valedictorian, class president, voted most likely to succeed. Her college career began at Albany State where she received her MRS—my father Bill.
Like many of us, she had hopes and plans when marrying and giving birth to her children. I just hope enough of them came true to balance those that did not. It’s a strange trip to go through her possessions—photographs that I’d never seen, certificates of her accomplishments stacked on a shelf in a closet that once had been a room I shared with my brother. Secrets that would remain that way forever. Things to be donated, things to be kept, things to be thrown away. Her belongings that she had personally, carefully, thoughtfully stowed, now touched and sorted by someone else’s hands.
Recognizing her own maturity, witnessing her friends aging, admitting her own body wearing out, my mom was still young on the inside. Definitely the most stubborn person I ever met—probably in a good way most of the time. To the end, she propagated and planted and gave away her geraniums and coleus with a purpose. They were the good parts of her that she shared. She taught me as a boy how to read leaves of plants to anticipate their needs. When I took over watering them for her, I counted 57 plants she was tending, plus all of her perennials outside in the garden. Nurturing her plants was her fountain of youth.
I dug up some of her favorite perennials from her extensive garden—I believe some of them even came from her own mother. They now reside with Megan and me. A living tribute is among the greatest ways to honor someone. Optimism, faith in the future—it allows us to think of them in a positive light as we preserve their memory. I encourage you to do the same, and now is an excellent time to do just that.
WRVO Producer Mark Lavonier:
From the Soil with Sollecito is a production of WRVO Public Media. If you have a question for Jim about your home landscaping, visit sollecito.com and click on contact or call 315-468-1142.
