Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

About 16 years ago today, my family and I gathered together to bury my dearest father. I still vividly remember many symbols from that day. All his children for example, wore white, particularly a thick white cloth common among Delta Igbos of Nigeria, called Akwa Ocha. My dad’s burial was the first time I had ever poured sand into a grave, the first time I had even seen a grave, the first time I met so many of my dad’s relative, and the first I went to my dad’s village.

Of course I have so many questions I wish I could ask my Dad, like why did he never take us to his village when he was alive or why Akwa Ocha is worn during burials. I know these questions will never be answered in the manner or ways that I know my dad would have loved to answer them. But what if there are other ways to still ask or connect with those we loved, now gone, through the things they once loved to do. 

Enter gardening. My dad was an avid gardener. I grew up watching him plant all sorts of things in his garden at the front of our home. From Aloe Vera plants to hibiscus flowers, even coconut trees and oranges. Nothing was off limit for my dad. It’s from this space that I wrote the book Bloom, as a reminder to every child that life and love continues, long after those we love pass on.

Bloom was written to confront difficult questions children may have about those they love no longer around. It’s a story of their continuing presence, something they can maintain for as long as they can, whenever they gather with each other. Over time, and through all the ways we tend to the plants or the flowers we grow, tend to each other too, the love we knew from those who once cultivated that same love within us, somehow remains all around us. Bloom is a powerful story of gathering, with its own rhythm and shared meaning, that I hope helps every child and the adults around them, bloom, in their own way.