Our year and a half year old golden retriever, Ryder, was diagnosed as seriously ill by Cook County’s mobile veterinarian. She recommended I drive to the all-night emergency veterinary hospital in Duluth. Dr. Katie had called ahead, so when I arrived late at night, the clinic was ready for Ryder, who needed hospitalization for supplemental oxygen and IV drugs. Due to spectacular fall colors, all hotel rooms were filled by leaf-peeping tourists, leaving not one available to me. I have cousins in Duluth, but due to the very late hour I didn’t want to wake them for a place to sleep. I slept in the car parked in the clinic’s lot till morning. Overnight, I learned modern Subarus are not designed for sleeping.
The emergency clinic is open only at night and collaborates with several daytime veterinarian clinics, so Ryder was transported to the day hospital in Superior, WI. Due to the long drive back to Hovland and not knowing when Ryder would come home, I stayed with our cousins, Anthony and Karen, the second night. After my arrival and their generous reception, I noticed their dining room table was covered in green tomatoes.
Karen and Anthony are prolific gardeners of vegetables and fruits. An early hard frost came with their tomato vines still hanging with fruit, some red but mostly green. Unripe. Karen said they will still ripen off their vines. My mother used to can a green tomato relish. Its picante sweet/sour taste was great on hamburgers. The green tomatoes made me think about what we do with unfinished things still in the process of becoming. What are the choices for the unfinished, the unripe, the immature? With garden produce we can be patient to let ripening happen or be industrious by canning or freezing for winter’s use. Unfinished relationships are another matter.
My father died at 43, leaving me, at 19, with questions about our relationship I didn’t even know to ask then. I searched for answers as I matured into my own fatherhood. Once I became a dad, I understood him better. Some answers came in dreams while some came in family stories told by others. I am left with a storied relationship with my father, as the best way to be done with unfinished business. It is actually pretty complete, like mom’s jars of green tomato relish.
Personal relationships can continue after someone dies in the form of legacy, grief, and memory. After the grief has lessened, joy can still be found in memory and stories. Our best friend died a few years back. She was a courageous woman demanding agency over herself for her entire life. Faced with rapid-onset dementia, she flew to Switzerland accompanied by her only son to receive medical end-of-life care. He flew back to Washington State with her ashes in an urn. Her death was felt by many due to her published books and workshops. Her teachings of spiritual observation and practices changed and enhanced the lives of people in the United States and Europe. Her generous gifts are still active in daily lives by residing in hearts and minds. Stories and memories are repeated with awe and joy like summertime fruits canned for wintertime use.
Not all “unfinished” relationships are with those that have passed over. Most living relationships are in progress. Like Karen’s green tomatoes slowly ripening on a sunny windowsill. Patience and attention are required. Anyone ripening produce on the kitchen counter or windowsill knows that some will ripen and some will become compost. High school sweethearts and college roommates are those kinds of connections. Some will ripen with time and attention while others wither at the end of context.
Contextual associations are found in the workplace, sports fields, clubs, and religious organizations. Workplace bonds are created by shared goals to a specific end. If that end is successful, the bond is strengthened, while failure is often a wedge ending in the compost bin. An affinity to a particular sport or club brings like minds and bodies to that arena, but off court is another matter. These activities create some lifelong bonds while others diminish when the game is over.
Formal religion has proven a fertile garden for those growing a ripe relationship with the Divine. Christianity has forty-five thousand denominations worldwide. Judaism has thirty-four sects, each with internal division. Islam has three major types with sects within. More rich spiritual diversity can be found in the Eastern religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and others. Through history, some religious traditions have risen and then fallen while others are currently powerful influences around the world. All this spiritual activity is maintained by multitudes of individuals. Each entering their association through birth or conversion. Each leaving that bond through disaffection or death. I think of Karen and Anthony’s gardens being planted, tended, harvested, and uprooted with the growing season of each year.
We modern humans tend to think in linear time. Life moves from birth to death. Gardens grow from spring to fall. Up and down is a straight line defined by gravity and where we stand on terra firma. Original creation is not linear but circular. We are aware that the sun rises every morning and spring regularly returns, but we are less aware of the actual spinning of our earth from our grounded perspective. Even more so, we don’t feel the Earth hurtling at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour on its annual trip around the sun.
The spiritual idea that the earth “was created” makes it a fixed event of the distant past. But the earth continues to be re-created over and over with the heavenly cycles and human influence. The uncounted, varied spiritual human relationships to the earth should lead us to think there is more at play in our lives than mere technological advancement. Spiritual kinship has always been part of the human bond while technological development has been slower to evolve. That has changed in the last several hundred years when our love of and dependence on technology began to eclipse our affinity to the spiritual.
It is an open question in our time if the gods’ experiment with humans will continue. Will human evolution ripen like Karen’s green tomatoes in sunshine? Or will it end in a cosmic compost heap? There is an Ojibwa story of the Creator being so angry at human behavior as to consider destroying all humans. Eagle, considered a sacred messenger and protector, convinced Creator to hold off while Eagle searched out humans living in a good way. Eagle observes humans living with respect for the Earth’s gifts and reports back to Creator. Eagle carries the prayers and gratitude of the people to Creator. I am hoping the Eagle flies by many windows full of ripening tomatoes.
