The Circle of Life

“We want to get married.”

“Mazal Tov! When?”

“Three days after you get back from your trip. In your garden.”

I could see Amir waving his hands frantically as if he were guiding a Boeing-747 down the runway. He himself was flying — and it was into panic mode.

“I love garden weddings,” I replied calmly.

We were wandering through a cloud forest in serious pursuit of glimpsing a sloth — or maybe it was a macaw or a leaf frog. As diligent Costa Rican tourists, we took our wildlife sighting seriously and our minds billowed like the jungle mist. This phone call yanked me back down to earth, grounding me in a soon-to-be Israeli reality.

I put down the phone and reassured Amir that it would be fine (even though I was not convinced that our place was up to ‘wedding standards.’) The garden was not exactly blossoming in a polished, botanical sense; rather it had more of that rustic, unbridled farmstead appeal. Plus, we were far, far away in a Costa Rican jungle when our daughter Talya called, so could not help her organize her wedding. 

As we traveled, Talya planned. The days of our trip flew by as her wedding to-do list shortened. On our arrival, she picked us up at Ben Gurion Airport and we drove home together, the car packed to the brim with items she had bought for the wedding. It was Tuesday night and the wedding was planned for Friday morning.

The night of our return to Israel, we fell into bed, bleary eyed and jet lagged, then jumped into wedding mode the very next day. We drove around, knocking off the remaining items on her list, and on Thursday we focused on setting up the garden. It was early December and the forecast called a warm, sunny day, ideal wedding weather.

I had dreamed that one of my children would get married in our garden, but I don’t know which garden I was imagining in that reverie. If anything, it was not this version of garden. Looking around, I saw a forlorn, dejected yard in desperate need of a good weeding, trim, pruning, and planting. How about a total landscaping makeover? But it was Thursday morning and we had less than 24 hours to get this place into shape.

As I tried to imagine how I could quickly trim the trees, plant new flowers, and weed the beds, Amir walked in. He told me that our next-door neighbor’s husband had passed away this morning. His funeral would be in a few hours and the shiva would start right after. Our neighbor was unwell for 15 years and his passing was no surprise. However, it was still a tragedy and he was a well-known and well-loved person. 

I froze on hearing the news; we would be having a wedding with joyous music while our neighbor next door was sitting shiva. And the entire community would be walking right past our festive chuppah to get to the house of mourning. What’s more, we would be placing a sign at the roadway to direct guests to our wedding while she had a sign to mark her husband’s death at the foot of her driveway. 

I felt terrible and was compelled to move the entire ceremony out of sight to a far corner of the property. I looked around. There was a large, flat area right outside the chicken coop. Here, the chickens would already be clothed in white and would line up to watch. Maybe the rooster would add a cock-a-doodle chorus to the music. 

Or, we could do the ceremony at the cabin out back. But to get there, guests would have to skirt around twigs and branches that were laying on the ground (a product of our chop and drop gardening technique). Well, I thought, there is always the hill at the back. But then guests would have to trek through my pile of soil. 

He brought the chairs back. The trees remained unpruned and the weeds had front row seats to the bride and groom. I was forced to let go of my unrealistic sense of perfection and embraced the wild and natural side of our farm garden. 

We picked four sugar cane stalks and wrapped them in bows, then attached a white cloth to create a chuppah. Talya and I picked flowers and greens, and she made her very own wedding bouquet. 

The next day, Talya beamed as she walked outside in her white dress, bouquet in hand, and married Berry under the sugar cane chuppah. Dogs ran around the guests’ ankles, babies crawled through the weeds, and the rooster cock-a-doodle-dooed. The look was rustic, the music low key, the vibe high. There was not a dry eye in the garden. 

A few days later, we paid a shiva call to our next-door neighbor. She was very happy for the young couple. “A wedding next door to a shiva house. This is the circle of life,” she said. 

We cut up the sugar cane that we used for the chuppah poles, planting the sections in pots. We will give away the propagated plants, spreading sweetness as we create a new cycle in this circle of life.