Disclaimers: No, Horatio and Calleigh are not mine, they belong to others and all I'm doing is borrowing them. I hope I haven't done them any harm!
Out of Death, Life "Miami Memorial Botanical Park," the letters on the restrained granite sign by the main highway spelled out. Calleigh had seen an article about the memorial park not long after moving to Miami, but had never before found the need to visit the park, let alone actually establish a memorial. But the case the CSI team had finished up just days before still had her on edge. She hoped that by planting something growing, she could somehow make it right for the life that had been ended so early, so she had looked the park up on the internet the night before and had gone shopping this morning. Reaching over to hold the plant steady on the passenger seat, she pulled off the bustling road into a shaded drive winding eventually to a nearly empty parking lot.
After rolling down her car windows a bit so that the rose bush she had bought wouldn't be cooked while she was in the office, she walked along the pine-barked path following signs pointing to the main office. The front room of the office, when she walked in, was just as sunny as it had been outside, but was nicely air-conditioned to take the edge off the stifling Miami weather. As she closed the door behind her, a brightly-colored bird fluttered from its perch in the back of the office to another perch beside the door. There, it rang a bell attached to the perch and squawked "Door! Door!" loudly but very distinctly.
"Well, aren't you just the smart boy?" she asked the bird as it scratched the side of its green head. As she bent slightly to look at it more closely, it repeated its bell-and-yell trick. This time, it was rewarded by a kind-faced woman who appeared from the back room saying "Thank you, Silver, that was very good. Very good!" After holding out her left hand for the bird to fly to, the woman approached Calleigh.
"Good morning, and welcome. This is Silver, my assistant, and I'm Carolyn. Are you here to visit the garden, or to plant a memorial today?"
"I came to plant something, actually. Do you have a lot of plantings here?"
"Oh, we're getting quite a lot, but we also get a lot of people just coming out to enjoy the peace and to visit the garden. I do hope you brought a perennial? The annuals can be quite pretty, but they just don't make for a lasting memorial. If it's an annual, we do have some plants you can—"
"No, it's a rose bush, if that's all right?"
"Yes, certainly. Why don't you fill in the memorial book here so that we can get the sign ordered, and while you're doing that I'll find a good spot for you to use."
Calleigh took the hard-covered book that Carolyn had handed her, with the current page marked by a ribbon bookmark, but spent a minute or so staring into space trying to figure out to write. 'What, after all, do you put on a memorial for someone you never even met until after she died?' she asked herself. Finally, she decided to look at what other people had written, and opened the book to the marked page. The handwriting of the last entry jumped out at her in its familiarity: bold, upright, square, and totally restrained in its neatness. It was dedicated to the same person she had come to plant a rose for, and was signed simply "HCC." Intrigued, she started looking at previous pages, and realized that there were quite a few entries in that same handwriting, with the same initials. Not just quite a few, actually, but many entries. Letting a tender smile battle with the sudden tears in her eyes, she pondered the true thoughtfulness of this kind man she called a friend.
After a few seconds, she finally decided to follow his lead, and kept her inscription in the book simple: "For Lisa Simmons, too young an angel. CMD." She closed the book, and looked up to see Carolyn watching her with a look of concern.
"Are you all right, then?" Carolyn asked her.
"Oh, yes, I'm fine, just had a hard time coming up with anything to say, and I saw something surprising in there, that's all."
"It can be hard sometimes, yes. This isn't always an easy place to visit, but we don't want it to be like a cemetery where you have the gravestones and monuments. We'd rather have the plants that celebrate life, and have people coming out to enjoy the plants and trees. Now, if you're all set, I've picked out a spot for you and marked it on the map here. We prefer that people don't drive their vehicles in if they can avoid it, so there are hand carts by the parking lot for transporting plants, and there are tools here by the gate if you need them..." at Calleigh's nod she resumed, "...just please do bring them back to the gate, won't you? "
"Thank you so much. But before I go, how did this get started? It seems like a great idea, and I'm surprised that no one had done it before."
"Well, about 5 years ago one of the leading businessmen in the region lost his daughter in an accident. She was a forestry and horticulture major at FSU, and had always loved botanical gardens. He wanted to commemorate her life, so he deeded this plot of land to the city to be used as a combination memorial and botanical garden. He still takes care of all the fees, and pays for the upkeep, the staff, all the maintenance on the gardens and plants, pays for the markers, everything, and lets the public use it as a limited-use park. So everyone wins!"
"That's a very sweet thing for him to have done. Thanks for the explanation; guess I've got a rose to plant, then."
As Calleigh let the door of the office close behind her, she turned her face to the sun. After spending so many hours in the lab this past week – no, to be truthful, this past year – the heat felt good on her body, and she could feel the muscles in her shoulders beginning to loosen just a bit.
She went back to the car, thankful that she had worn a loose white T-shirt and tan jeans today, as the sunshine was nice but was going to make it a very hot day to be digging in the dirt. After claiming a handcart and putting the little rose bush, hand tools, and some other supplies on it, she shouldered her casual handbag and oriented herself on the map. A paved path leading from the parking lot was signed "Gardens and Park," and she confirmed with the map that this was the one she wanted to take. A brief walk past some young plantings as well as some old trees that must have been there before the property became a park led her to a second path branching off, signposted simply "Rose Garden" and "Flower Gardens." The sign on the path she had followed originally, which led over a slight rise and disappeared, read "Trees and Large Plantings," and as she looked at the tree canopy on the other side of the rise she thought she saw the flash of the roof of a parked car. A large vehicle, really, not a car, and a unique pewter-gold color. Looking down at the path, she realized that a wide vehicle, with about the width and tire size of a Hummer, had been driven down that path and over the rise. 'Well, with the number of plantings he's brought in here, he should get special privileges. But interesting we both end up here today. Enough, Miss Duquesne, you have Lisa's rosebush here, so go plant it!' With a second look at the map, she pushed the handcart towards the rose garden, but not without a second look towards what she was fairly sure was a Miami-Dade CSI Hummer.