Late last spring, I planted two seed packets of Heavenly Blue Morning Glories. Years ago when I first saw that vine with trumpet-shaped blooms spilling over a mailbox. I stopped in my tracks, startled with an “Oh my!” at their azure-blue unlike any other flower. Soon after that, I found myself in the garden aisle during the gray days of late February, anxious to buy those seeds for that deep blue color that called me.

I’ve designated a special place in all my gardens to showcase those Heavenly Blues. Once I bragged to my Uncle Joe about my plant that had produced so many saucer-size blooms. He had been a seed analyst for the FCX–the Farmer’s Cooperative Exchange for his entire career after he graduated from N.C. State with an Agronomy degree.

“Connie, you know morning glories are weeds, don’t you?” he asked, grinning, his brown eyes full of warmth.

“I know the wild ones can be for farmers, but the Heavenly Blues are different,” I defended. “They never grow beyond where I plant them.”

He and Mama, who was his younger sister, had grown up on a farm. The wild variety of morning glories were likely some of the invasive plants, weeds that they had to chop out of their fields.

When I started planting the Heavenly Blues, I didn’t realize they were later bloomers and didn’t show up until around the end of September. It’s nice to look forward to their strong color when other flowers have had their season and are fading out. Last year those blooms lasted until our first heavy frost around Thanksgiving.

I’ve been in my townhouse three years in November. Since I installed a white fence, I’ve had a white backdrop for my Heavenly Blues which I can see from my dining table. I find myself saying, “When the Morning Glories bloom . . .” and then think of having guests for meals so they can enjoy the beauty that’s mine every morning. It’s fitting that the flowers open up in the morning light and then close after their one-day of splendor. I’ve always had my best energy in the morning and can identify with that life cycle of those plants.

“When the Morning Glories bloom” is a way of marking time. In the days before we relied on clocks and calendars, people used the natural rhythms of the seasons to measure time. Though I no longer live on a farm as I did when I was a girl, I understand this way of marking time. And recently, I learned that others connect with this, too.

One night when I attended the Blues Jam at Blue Note Grill, I reconnected with Kathy, a woman I’d known through Evergreen Methodist Church. We’d attended there when my sons and her daughter were in high school. When I slid into one of the single seats to the side of the stage, I turned to see the person in the next seat. We looked at each other and then in our surprise called each other’s name. It had been so many years and so many changes since we were those mothers of high school students.

I saw her again several months later when I heard her sing for the first time. I’d never known her to sing at Evergreen so I was surprised when she performed a Blues song. What I did remember was how she often worked in the flower garden by the church and we’d talked about our mutual love of gardening.

I didn’t see her again but learned through a heart-wrenching Facebook post that she’d passed away on July 30th this year. I wasn’t aware she’d been sick. It was hard to believe that after I’d recently connected with her that she was gone. I read her obituary and filled in some of the gaps of her life over the years since we’d been at Evergreen. What resonated was the plan for her service:

“A celebration of life will be held in the spring

when the daffodils bloom.“

Daffodils have long been a symbol of rebirth and new beginnings. I could envision her working in that Evergreen garden and a bouquet of daffodils in her hands. It was fitting that she would be celebrated with those first flowers of spring.

I’m glad that I got to reconnect with Kathy, a kindred spirit in the love of flowers, of gardening, of music, and of marking time by the natural rhythms of life.

In loving memory of the kind gentle spirit of Kathy Whaley.