The beautiful memorial garden I made for my mum

A bond between a mother and a child is indescribable. In this very emotional story, a daughter loses a mother and a mother loses a child.

During such a heart-breaking time, many people like this young girl and her grand-mother seek out options open to them to keep their beloved close to home.

Baru Rose lives in Czech Republic and told us the story of her beloved mother and how they came to make a beautiful memorial garden that blooms all year round for her.

 

“The conversation” about death we should all have

It was few years ago in 2014 when my mum was fighting breast cancer and her, my grandma and I were hiking in a national park in Šumava (Czech Republic) It was a beautiful day, we were walking in a woods and my mum just started talking about trees and how we treat them. At the time, there was a tree virus taking over the woods and many had to cut down.

My grandma just said “When the time comes, I don´t want to be in a cemetery, I want to be free. Take my ashes and spread them somewhere close to my favourite castle or in nature”. You see, my grandma is castle-lover!

On that walk, they just started talking about it, but I felt like I was not ready for this conversation. I didn´t want to hear that one day, they will not be the people I love anymore. Now, I realize how important it is to talk about it because one day, people we love will become memories, and one day we will have to decide what to do with their remains. Make their wish come true. I didn´t know then that I would be making a beautiful memorial garden for my mum only a few years later.

Now I am writing this with tears in my eyes thinking of my beloved mum who is watching over me from heaven. My mum was the best mum I could have. We shared such special moments, laughed like little children, had a friendship like best friends and loved each other like soulmates. She was a part of me which I miss every single day.

She won and cancer lost in the year 2014, but it came back and worse. In March 2017, she was diagnosed with liver, bone and lymph node cancer. At the time I was working as an au-pair in Boston, MA. I was taking care of the children and one day that March I felt such a weird feeling. I contacted everyone in my family to ask if everything was OK and they reassured me that nothing bad had happened. Well it wasn´t true. Everybody knew then, I was the only one who didn´t have a clue about what was really going on.

Going home

I came back on August the 2nd and I was met by my family and my mum. She was beautiful. I hadn´t seen her for 7 months. She had lost weight, her hair was longer, she was glowing and so happy that I was back home. But I just knew that something was not right. That day she told me that the cancer had returned, but that everything was fine and the treatments was working. She explained that she hadn´t told me whilst I was away because she knew she would be OK and she didn´t want to end the last 4 months of my trip.

Her last medical check had been in July. The next one was scheduled for August 9th. That day she stayed in the hospital for the day and the next day, on August 10th, they told us that she only had 14 days to live. Her liver wouldn´t make it after that.

At the hospital she told me “Don´t worry, I will always be with you taking care of you from heaven”.

I was with her every single day, every moment. I was taking care of her and supporting her. One day she told me “When I die, I want to be a tree so that I will live forever. So that I can be with you and you can talk to me and hug me when you all need to.” This may have been the beginning of the idea for the memorial garden.

She died on August 24th in her bed close to me, my dad, my brother and her best friend. We were all with her when she took her breath for the last time.

A few days later I started searching for something, where my mum can be, company, which would make her dream came true. That´s when I found Bios Urn®.

My mother´s very own memorial garden

I checked the website pages, their YouTube videos and I fell in love. This was exactly what she would have wanted. Her friend, also a friend of mine, said that my mum had actually found Bios Urn® and had talked about it. So I found out if they delivered to my country in the Czech Republic, which they thankfully do as they send all around the world, I ordered it and it arrived home.

The big thing was choosing the type of tree because we had no idea what she would have liked best. She always loved jasmine trees, but it´s hard to grow in our climate. So we choose the tree of life, which we realized later is also hard to grow locally. So finally, we found the tree: a magnolia tree. White like my mum´s clear soul. She loved angels and was a big believer in them so this tree felt perfect.

I then had this idea. My mum loved the woods, nature, flowers. My grandma has a house next to forest where my mum used to spend a lot of time. So we made a little memorial garden just for her with the help of the whole family so that people could come to talk to her and hug her whenever they felt the need to. My grandma is also a gardener so she specially picked spring, summer and autumn flowers which would bloom during every season. My grandpa made a chair so that people could sit in the garden. As for me, I organized things and planted the flowers. And this coming spring, we will plant my mums tree there.

In October, she had her celebration of life ceremony. She said that she didn´t want a funeral or any black clothes. She said that she wanted people to laugh, to wear colorful clothes and to not be said because she is fine. So that´s what we did: Everyone came in colourful clothing trying their best to laugh.  This is when we showed them her future resting place. They loved it and a lot of people said it was the best funeral they had been to.

Thank you so much Bios Urn® because without you we would not have been able to do it. My mum will now be a tree and will be there forever thanks to you. We could make her dream to come true. My grandma (my mother´s mother) is also so grateful. Thank you

Love, Baru Rose and her family

 

Each planting of a Bios Urns® is unique

Each planting, each location, is specific to the individual and family, and no two Bios Urns® in the world are the same. That´s the beauty of these stories, there is a sense of autonomy and choice. Dealing with loss is always hard, and tends to send life in an unknown and often confusing direction. One thing we believe at Bios Urn®, is that people see the beauty of life expressed in nature, and in trees. How we connect with these cycles and these stages is personal into and of itself, but the important thing is that we all connect. Like Baru Rose and her family did with the beautiful memorial garden.Our only hope is to provide comfort and a positive alternative to those who have experienced loss, and to provide a voice for those willing to share their unique stories.

Has Barbora´s story touched you?  Have you made your own memorial garden? Let us know in the Comments section below. We´d love to hear from you.

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