“I Dream of Eden”

 

Visiting the gardens made him sad again. He promised to take his mother here to see flowers from all over the world. Didn’t he mention to her that they have olive trees? She loved to use olive oil for her youthful skin. Yes, her skin looked youthful even when she was dying. Yes he did mention it to her. The dwarfed trees remind him of her.

And for a while he forgot about it when he saw white lilies and tiger lilies. The flowers produce strong, woody smell. He thought the blooms were sprinkled with sawdust but when seen closely, it was the pollen. He once again got distracted by the chance of finding roses of Sharon, a kind of hibiscus. The name sounds beautiful to his ears. Then he found out that camellia can grow so tall. Nevermind the pungent smell, the flowers look so showy. And its leaves look like those of tea.

It rained outside and he was raining inside. He was sad that she would never be here to see everything that looks so bright, so beautiful. The gardens are lovely. If he could imagine what Eden—sans domes—might have looked like, here it is. But then there is Eden Project in Europe.

Gardens are said they boost longevity. S thought, the Chinese proverb is true: if you want to be happy for a week, cook a swine. A month, get married. For life, tend a garden.

His mother never liked flowers that much. She only planted edible plants. But she did admire them, like bunga rias (a kind of torch ginger, a food flavoring), domiana (a herb with red appearance, thought to have medicinal purposes), and banana flowers (which she cleverly cooked and served with sambal). He remembered that one day, like months before they moved to Jalan Hamid Rusdi, she gave him Rp500 to buy a small orchid in order to make him happy. And she even transformed her front garden in Java with bright red florets of roselle which aroused the neighborhood’s curiosity.

Outside of the glass domes, it was raining and he was still raining inside. The sickly sweet smell of tea hybrid roses made him even more sad. He remembered, his mother let a pot of rose grow. Perhaps as a gesture of remembrance. Her mother—his grandmother—used to distill and sell rose water in the market.

But then he remembered, she is already in Eden now. The real Eden. Eden sans domes. Not only flowers, she will find fruits also and animals. It is where lambs are playing with lions.It's where hummingbirds are abundant, so are butterflies. He's sure, she is happy there.