Planting on the Upgone SiGn

Mary Alice Hostetter

The phone rang ten times, and there was no answer when I tried to call my mother at 7:00 the morning of her ninetieth birthday. A bit concerned, I tried again before I left for work. That time she answered in six rings.

“Happy Birthday,” I said. “Where were you?”

“Out in the garden. We need to finish planting. Still have to put in the
pickles, corn, limas, and string beans. Thought sure we had enough seeds, but I had to send Daddy down to the hardware store for more. It’s the upgone sign—I checked the Farmers’ Almanac,” she said. “And the ground is finally dry enough for planting again. I’m glad I got the lettuce and peas in before it got so wet.”

“So what are you going to do to celebrate your birthday?”

“Hadn’t given it much thought. Try to finish up the garden, I guess.”

Birthday celebrations had been much on my mind. I was approaching my own fiftieth, as were many of my friends. Some had already passed that marker, so conversations frequently turned to celebrations of the “BIG FIVE-O.” One friend had done a middle aged Outward Bound experience, camping and hiking and sleeping in furrows on beds of pine needles. Another had a week of silence at a Zen retreat; another a week of self-indulgence with mudbaths and mineral baths and massage. Some had chosen travel, theater, good food, and wine. I couldn’t decide what indulgences of the body, mind, or spirit would be just right for me.

I tried to imagine my mother, a simple Mennonite woman, celebrating in a mudbath in California, or on a trek to Nepal. I couldn’t imagine her celebrating in any of the ways I had heard of or considered for myself.

But I could imagine her, and see her clearly, scurrying in from the garden to answer the phone, bent over a bit, using the hoe as a sort of oar to push off as she hurried, sunbonnet strings streaming loose in the spring breeze, the laces of her garden shoes—dusty black sneakers—undone to keep the pressure off her bunions. 

I could imagine her standing there talking on the hallway phone, one hand on the small of her back, a chair only a few feet away, but she’d stand. I knew she’d stand.

She had a garden to plant, things to do. Eight thirty in the morning on the day of her ninetieth birthday was not a time for sitting. Sitting was for the afternoon, when she might settle in to do some quilting, braid a rug, or write some letters. But it was a sunny morning in April, and it was dry enough for planting, and it was the upgone sign. It was time to finish putting in the garden.

—Mary Alice Hostetter, Charlottesville, Virginia, after a career in teaching and human services, has now chosen to devote more time to her lifelong passion for writing. Among the themes she has explored are reflections on growing up Mennonite in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, during the 1950s and 1960s.