Rain Will Make The Flowers Grow

When it rains, I go for walks. My roommates have now grown accustomed to me bounding down the stairs during a thunderstorm. When I'm happy, rain seems happy too, as it washes the dust from the trees, and helps my flowering tomato plants grow.

Lately, though, rain seems fitting because I am crying a lot, and it helps when the rest of the world looks like its crying, too. I went back to my specialist last week, and we found more Lyme. Over the past two months, the return of certain symptoms had clued me into the fact that I wasn't done taking tinctures or detox baths. Still, a small part of me wanted to hear her say, "Yeah, it's gone. You're finished." I gladly went for a stroll later in the rain. That's the other great thing about storms: people aren't outside to see you crying. 

Shortly after I was first diagnosed with Lyme disease, I found a song by For King and Country called, "It's Not Over Yet." It struck me as fitting because the band wrote it for their sister, a young woman in her twenties who also has Lyme disease. I used to sing parts of it to myself on my drives to treatments. 

It's like a constant war

And you want to settle that score

But you're bruised and beaten

And you feel defeated

To everyone who's hit their limit

It's not over yet

It not over yet

And even when you think you're finished

It's not over yet

It's not over yet

There was something so hopeful about it then. Now, though, it feels like a slap in the face. It's not over yet. I really want it to be. I want to feel like I have other things to do besides getting better and working. It's not over yet. I want to have friends. I want to not have to explain why I moved to Wisconsin, I want to not have to talk about Lyme disease and the fact that my siblings have it. I want to be understood. It's not over yet. I want to be finished, to feel some sense of arrival, or even contentment. But it's not over yet. All the explaining, all the wanting to belong, it isn't over yet, and neither is the illness. Some days I really do not feel like fighting anymore.

My favorite character in the musical Les Miserables is Eponine, the French girl who, despite difficult circumstances, is still kind and puts her friend Marius before herself. Also, the song "On My Own" is really wonderful to sing when you're experiencing any kind of relational angst. If you know anything about the musical, you know Eponine doesn't make it. She sacrifices herself for the man she loves, even though he is in love with a golden haired goody named Cosette, who has no interesting qualities, is adored by all, and is, of course, played by a soprano. Eponine, it would seem, does not belong anywhere, either. No one sees her until the end. 

The song I am returning to over and over again though, is not when Eponine walks through the rainy streets singing about her unrequited love. The moment I come back to is when she lies dying on the street, having taken a shot for Marius. 

                            "Don't you fret, Monsieur Marius, I don't feel any pain.

A little fall of rain,
Can hardly hurt me now. 

And you will keep me safe,
And you will keep me close, 

And rain will make the flowers grow."

I've always been struck by the absolute unfairness of this death. How ridiculous is it that Eponine dies when Marius, the man who has two women madly in love with him, goes on living? Eponine never has children, she never experiences romantic love, never even has enough money, and yet she sings this beautiful promise as she dies: rain will make the flowers grow. Her sacrifice is made all the more beautiful because she does not see the good that comes from it. 

I went on a walk today through a garden in Frame Park, and cast my mind back to the steely grey day when I stood in the same place. The garden was still and empty then, rose bushes standing black and grim like frozen sentries. My beautiful grey shawl was little help in the wind, and no amount of stamping made my booted feet warm as the wedding party posed for pictures. My diagnosis was months away, and my little sister was getting married. I could not foresee the trudging in a rain storm feeling and being alone.

The garden has grown back since, pushing upward in purple, white, yellow, green, and pink. The roses bushes sway a little from the weight of their blossoms, and the warm air is sweet. Storm clouds are blowing in as I leave. I sing a little promise to myself:

Don't you fret.

Rain will make the flowers grow.