Bleeding Heart

Although most of our life, at the moment, revolves around the wedding, there are other things that also need our attention...like the garden. This morning, I was putting cow poo and mulch on our flowers, and I noticed our first bloom in the perennial border that Pat planted for us. It's a fuchsia, but at first I thought it was a bleeding heart.

I asked Pat to include a bleeding heart and a few other flowers from my childhood in our garden; I'm so glad that she did. Bleeding hearts remind me of my Uncle Wayne. When I was a kid, I spent time during the summer on the farm where he and my Aunt Sherry raised sheep. I remember going home from one particular visit with the start of a bleeding heart, though I never had success getting it to grow.

In July of 1996, Uncle Wayne passed away suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack. There are times in my life when his absence feels overwhelming. Over the past few months, I've been thinking about him and how his nieces were like the daughters he never had; he called us his "gurls." This has been a very special year for us with Kristi's wedding a couple of months ago and mine next week. Although the emptiness left by Uncle Wayne's death makes my heart ache, I'm so glad that Aunt Sherry is able to be part of our special days. Although it's the fuchsia, and not the bleeding heart, that is blooming, I still feel like Uncle Wayne is watching us from afar and smiling down upon us.


**UPDATE**
My mom assures me that the bleeding heart Uncle Wayne gave me years ago was a success and still lives and blooms at the west end of her house. So, apparently Uncle Wayne is watching out all the way from Ohio.