When and Where You Least Expect It

You just never know when and where a bit of grief will surprise you with the depth that still exists in you. But it can also show you how much you’ve healed.

I made my monthly run to Costco earlier this month and knew it was a dangerous time for me. The place is full of gardening things! Bags of potting soil and plants and doo-dads to decorate with and hoses and tools! And working intently on my own garden I am highly susceptible even though I have everything I actually need.

So I used the technique I use in a thrift shop, estate sale or any other opportunity I find for choosing from lots of things I either need or can potentially use for something: I looked at everything. Once. Then walked away. I decided I really needed none of it, except…

Right when you walk in the lobby, before you even scan your membership card and start your engines on your supersize shopping cart, were racks of small perennial shrubs, huge tomato and pepper plants, porch and deck pots of mixed bedding plants, already in bloom. And a four-pack of 8-10” tall herb plants, “Fines herbes” as they say in French, or French-Canadian as Costco has a large presence in Canada which is practically right up the road from me here.

I have lots of seeds for herbs, and even a rosemary plant from last year. I have all the pots and growing bed space lined up for them, some are already sprouting out there. But I went to look anyway because who doesn’t want a jump on the season with some organically-grown plants large enough to use right now that might be a variety you don’t have?

Let’s see, I turned the pack around and saw rosemary—got that, peppermint—plenty of that, thyme—already started, and…sweet basil.

Sweet Basil.

Tears automatically rolled down my face so fast I didn’t even have the chance to get choked up first. I was about to say “no, I’ve got all these” but not once I saw the actual words “sweet basil” on the tag.

You just never know when a bit of grief will surprise you with the depth that still exists in you. But it can also show you how much you’ve healed.

Had it just said “basil” I would have been okay. But seeing the actual words and having that reaction I already had an attachment to the little collection, just Basil stopping by to remind me he’s still with me, and I was glad they were only $15.00 and I can really never have too much of these, even the mint which is Moroccan mint and has a spicy touch to its scent. But I would have taken them nonetheless because it is a connection with my memories of Basil, and those tiny things are important.

That’s the second time I was given an unexpected reminder of my Sweet Basil by a basil plant. Last April 2025 walking through CVS…

I had to leave. It was just four months after I’d lost him and it really hurt. I didn’t buy that little planter full of basil seeds, but I never forgot.

So this year’s reminder was gentler and almost made me laugh. I’ll put those four plants in a deck-rail planter off the side where they’ll get plenty of sun and rain when it falls, and all summer I’ll watch them grow and use them to cook, and look at that basil plant and think of my Sweet Basil.

 

Little visits

You never know where the messages will come from or how the visitor will appear to you. But they will. They love and care about you as they did in life and still want to be near you.

Thank you for following our grief journey after losing seven members of our feline family.

I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.

Read more articles about Attachments related to the loss of a beloved animal companion.

Also read articles about Pet Loss and Pet Loss in the First Person, where I share my own experiences.

You can read all the articles related to their loss by tapping the images in the side bar and in articles.

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