The Dead Flower Appreciation Society

Good night, sweet princess.

“That one too?” I asked my mom, pointing at a stunning red plant on her patio that has a name which I forget.

“Yes.”

“And that one?”

“That one too,” she replied. “They’re not perennials. They all die in winter.”

Damn. That’s cold. This patio used to be a paradise — bursting with blossoms and great green palms. It was life itself. Sitting on the deck in the early evening, you could almost feel them breathing, like a thousand tiny sighs.

And now, they’re issuing their final sigh — strangled by winter’s long white fingers.

I washed up at my mom’s house and began my recovery in the middle of cruel winter. The relentless cold may have exacerbated the misery of those early days, but it also did me a favor.

Winter pinned me down. Had it been one of those long summer nights, who knows where I might have wandered, looking for a fix?

Just going for a walk, mom.

Instead, winter’s brutality kept me cloistered for months. No way I was going to wander those dark, frozen streets. Bed, gym, recovery meeting, back to bed — the rhythm of this ex-crack smoker's existence.

Winter grounded me just long enough to get through the early withdrawal symptoms — and glimpse a brighter road ahead.

I emerged with a spectacular case of spring fever. My mom and I reined in the chaos of the basement — organizing boxes, selling things we’d never need and even sorting through my old newspaper clippings.

Then we turned our attention to the patio. We laid down giant flagstones and poured pebbles between them. Furniture, a potting table, solar lights and so many plants made it a paradise — a paradise soon to be lost to winter.

Seasons also speak of our own life cycles. Spring is birth. It’s a time when you make room on the sidewalk for the young mother jogging behind a double stroller. It’s the season of hope and possibility. Then comes summer — the long grind, reminding us that life is indeed a marathon. You have to work a little harder to find joy in the moment. Next is fall, the twilight season. Its beauty is in its own fragility. This is when we finally get around to reading Wuthering Heights. From here, you can almost see the ending.

And that is winter. The great void. But it is also a great peace, a time to rest at last. Sometimes, it comes as a welcome relief.

“I don’t mind changes,” my mom says. “I don’t mind death really. Because I know it will all just start again.”

But some cycles do come to a full stop. When I visit my dog I’m often saddened to see a little more white in her fur, and a little less gallop in her game.

Then I think about all the seasons Luna has known — and absolutely feasted upon. She frolics in summer fields and snowy plains. Every moment is leavened with love.

When you live spring, winter and fall to the fullest, winter comes a little easier.

That’s kind of how this first year of recovery feels for me. There’s been so much learning, loving and healing.

We earned this winter. Not only us, but the patio plants and flowers. They may not be back next year, but they sure lived spectacularly.

“Why are we so worried about dying?” mom asks.

Although, she adds, she’d be inconsolable had she lost me to addiction — knowing that I spent my final days alone and unloved. Think of all those unspent seasons.

As an addict, I was too scared to live — and too scared to die.

But seasons change.

“If I lost you now, I would truly be grateful for the time we spent together,” she says.

Of course, no one wants to die. Not even the most devoutly religious — no matter how much faith they place in the hereafter.

But when you live this life fully, the notion of dying becomes a little easier. In fact, the measure of a life may be the ease with which you greet its end. Some people, like my grandmother, meet it with a sense of relief and satisfaction. Others go kicking and screaming — begging for a refund on all those unused moments.

If my end came tomorrow, I like to think I won’t rage too much against the dying of the light. These 11 months have been so rich, they may have saved my whole life.

I know when it’s her time, Luna won’t kick or scream either. By then, she’ll be well and truly tired. Still, it’s impossible to imagine the end of my dog — without a great swelling in my own chest. Where once I saw the spring in her step, now I see the autumn in her eyes. Winter is at the door — and then we bid our sweet princess, good night.

Until then, with every breath, she reminds us all that we can be legends in the fall. And, when winter does come, rest easy.