Patricia Blair. Pat Blair to those who knew her well. Nana to a little girl who saw her as a star come down to earth, a hypothesis proven with short blonde hair, characteristic gold hoops, and an ever-present star necklace. I wasn’t raised religious, but weekends with Nana in the Phipps Conservatory felt like days spent in worship. It’s a hidden gem in my hometown of Pittsburgh, and it began to resemble something of a church built on botany in my eyes.
Nana would speak about each plant’s scientific name, warn me about which flowers were deadly and which were edible. She would remind me why bugs were necessary to life in the garden. We would wander through Chihuly glass sculptures, me in a dress my mother had made, Nana in a pair of khakis and a simple shirt. She smelled of flowers and was the picture of elegance, a fitting title since her favorite song was the orchestral ballad of Canon in D. It became my five-year-old gospel. The song was a wedding hymn, beloved by a woman who raised two sons in the wake of a divorce and never remarried.
“You see, these plants are planted next to each other so they grow better. They help each other live.” Nana preached with lips cracked from experience and eyes welling with wisdom as if she was quoting her own bible. As I internalized her scripture, I realized I was a product of companion planting, a method that places certain plants next to another because the close relationship benefits both. Nana made this concept innately human.
Nana volunteered at Phipps using her master’s in biology, a degree uncommon for a woman her age. Before Phipps, she worked at a high school educating kids who lived below the poverty line. She was a teacher to her core, and after seeing my growing adoration for all the butterflies that inhabited Phipps, she gifted me one.
“Make sure they have plenty of milkweed,” she advised. “When they’re ready, they will come out of their chrysalises, and dry their wings.”
“I can’t wait to have my very own butterflies,” I gushed, not quite understanding.
“You can admire them, but then they’ll fly away. They have to.”
One weekend, I slipped and fell on a step in her house, landing with a clunk at the bottom of the stairs. When she picked me up, I was sobbing with blood streaming down from my mouth and a large gap where one of my front teeth should be. To this day, I never remember the pain, only the feeling of it easing when Nana’s loving arms wrapped around me.
When Nana died, I laid on the couch clutching a small, stuffed horse she had given me, desperately attempting to keep my arms closed tight around something permanent. Her funeral was held in a large parish with light pouring through the windows as if we were in a greenhouse, and I sat in the front row with my family, sobbing and heaving. Soon after, my parents divorced, and I remember listening to Canon in D while trying to cope with another beautiful thing that seemed destined to always fly away from me.
Later, Nana’s most prized possession was gifted to me. I would show it off to all my friends, bragging about how the star necklace now belonged to me until I lost it at a friend’s house one day. I thought it was gone forever until her mom posted a picture on Facebook. The moment it was returned, I immediately placed it back around my neck. As I began to fall asleep that night, the blinds in my room flew up, and a glowing orb swayed outside the glass. I stared, frozen, entranced by this beam of light which had no perceivable source. The orb began moving further away until it ascended back to the heavens. I never thought I was a spiritual person until I racked my brain for answers – car, plane, streetlight? None of it made sense – but It had to be Nana.
As a 21-year-old woman, I have placed roots in California, 2,500 miles from my family. I have worn her necklace every day since arriving at college. Whenever I catch a glimpse of a butterfly on campus, I remember how female Monarch butterflies voyage for the first part of their life until they return to where they were born in early spring to lay their eggs. They leave because they have to, yet they carry everything with them as they see new places. Then they return to where they grew up. Fulfilled and reborn in a multitude of different ways as they were always meant to be.
Liv Blair is a fourth-year film and media studies major at UC Santa Barbara. She has been a writer since a young age, and she is currently obtaining a minor in professional writing for journalism as well as working on a multimedia poetry book as a RAAB Fellow at UCSB. Liv is also a member of Delta Kappa Alpha and has acted in multiple productions in Santa Barbara. Most recently, she was awarded “Best Actress” at UCSB’s Reel Loud Film & Arts Festival. Professionally, she plans on pursuing both writing and acting in Los Angeles after she graduates.
Stories Matters is a mentoring program founded by best-selling author and award-winning documentarian Leslie Zemeckis. Co-sponsored by the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) and ENTITY Mag, the writing program focuses on craft and confidence. Guest professional female authors join weekly, mentoring the next generation of female storytellers. A six-week intensive challenges every writer to work on an 800-word story about “A Woman You Should Know.”
