Toad in the Hole

Every Memorial Day weekend, we plant flowers by Mike’s gravestone. Even though Mike never served in the armed forces, it’s as good a time as any to do some grave tending, remembering, and planting.

I chose the usual Begonias in bright salmon pink, yellow, and orange. Mike was a summer guy, and he wore t-shirts in those colors in the heat and sun.

As I was digging out the space in front of his gravestone, I noticed how loose and easy the soil was. Most of it was potting soil that came with the flowers I planted last year. Just as I was getting ready to jab the shovel back in the dirt, I saw something: a toad, sitting smack in the middle of the hole! A small, brownish-grey toad, squatting there, unmoving.

I wasn’t sure at first if the toad was alive, because he was so still, but as I gently lifted him up in a shovel full of dirt, he blinked and moved a bit. He looked grumpy, like he really didn’t appreciate being disturbed. Pull out phone. Google toads. Discover that they like to burrow in the dirt by day, and emerge at night to do whatever toads do. Used Google Lens to try to identify him and discovered he was (probably) a very common North American toad, largely harmless, except that he could excrete a toxin from his eyes when he was upset. So I left him alone and went back to my planting.

I expected to put him back in his comfy place when I was finished, but he must have hopped away. After I got my heart-shaped arrangement of the flowers mostly the way I wanted it, I Googled “symbolism of toads,” because how many times do you dig up a living toad sitting smack in the middle of the planting area of your late husband’s grave? It seemed like a sign of some kind. Or I wanted it to be, I suppose.

So I Googled “spiritual significance of toads” and got a laundry list that included transformation, prosperity, resilience, groundedness, abundance, humility, patience, perseverance, hidden blessings, and hidden wisdom.

Well, that’s a lot to choose from. I’ll take ’em all.

I’ve been mopey lately, without really knowing why. Life getting to routine? No vision of what’s next for me, assuming I’m successful in getting Angelic Daughter launched into a supported independent living situation? Feeling down about all the preventative maintenance involved in getting older? Scan this, test that, your body is not as young as you think it is, not anymore, anyway. Don’t go climbing any ladders, lady,

But that toad seemed like a message: hang in there. I hear Dennis Quaid’s cajun-accented voice from a movie called The Big Easy where his co-star Ellen Barkin says something about how she has bad luck with relationships and he says, “your luck about to change, cher…” and makes passionate love to her in a very sexy scene, as far as I remember (because YouTube doesn’t seem to!) Maybe my luck about to change, too.

Toads transform themselves through many phases of life, shedding their skin and starting anew, adapting to change, and existing happily in a variety of environments (land and water). They’re a sign of acceptance, figuratively, of “warts and all” (but hold the literal warts, please, just sayin’).

When I finished planting, watering, and cleaning up, I took a moment to ask Mike to find a way to comfort Angelic Daughter, and a way to let me know he’s still around, caring about us. “Gimme a breeze, loves, just to let me know you’re with me.”

And he did. It had been quite still while I was planting, but when I asked for a breeze, I got one. Plus, Angelic Daughter saw a monarch butterfly, a symbol of Mike to me, “flitting and floating” around the cemetery, and I saw one zip across our back yard later that afternoon. Also, those giant bumblebees that Mike and I loved and used to call “B52s” because they’re so big you can’t understand how they could possibly fly, have been droning around, doing their job of pollinating things.

To me these are signs of love, perseverance, resilience, and interconnectedness – between Mike and me, and Mike and Angelic Daughter. That toad was a sign of hope, that transformation could still happen, even at my age, even as a widow, even with a body that is weaker than I thought it was but healthier than I deserve (considering how badly I’ve treated it over the years). Good things can still be ahead for me.

I guess it’s time to shed my skin and start again, again.

Wishing you a peaceful Memorial Day of comfort if you mourn, and hope if you despair, I remain,

your trying-to-stay-grounded-and-open-to-whatever-hidden-blessings-choose-to-reveal-themselves,

Ridiculouswoman