As mom recovered (seemingly) from her little “touch of bursitis” (that is a joke – it was actually a raging, uncontrolled staph infection in her hip; after everything the family has endured, I’d sure appreciate if you laughed whenever one of us says “touch of bursitis”), so did her sole surviving spider plant.
What can I say, friends? I love plants but I am not a green thumb. I once managed to kill a cactus by dehydration. Yeah. A cactus. Mom, however, was a gardener. She took after her own mother, no doubt, of whom we have a handful of age-toned photos as she cares for her roses and lilacs and other lovelies… in pearls, dress, and heels. Mom always loved that about grandma – her love for her flowers and her diligence tending to them, no matter what other occasion befell. So yes – clearly, in not tending to mom’s spider plants, you can infer that I have not inherited this beautiful trait my grandmother and mother shared.
When I tell you that mom and that one stubborn spider plant recovered together, what I mean to say is… as mom regained her strength, she poured herself once again into caring for her spider plant (and every other living thing I had neglected). Before long, that plant was flourishing anew, healthy but perhaps weary, and sprouting babies for mom to start coaxing to growth once again.
But the infection, as it turned out, was less of an isolated traumatic medical event and more of a catalyst into decline and dementia. Though her spider plant survived many years yet, the babies did not. Mom didn’t have it in her, cognitively, to nurture them to life as she had in the past. Eventually, the spider plant grew frail and gave up, because I’ll be honest, I spent the last two years of mom’s life not caring about any of the plants in the house. They just didn’t seem to matter that much compared to mom’s battle.
Even in her final months, though, my mom tried. She truly tried. There was part of her brain or spirit or something – untouched by the dementia – that still longed to grow things and tend them to life. Just has she had all the years of my youth, in her final years mom had sprouts and cuttings lined up to root in vases of water on the kitchen windowsill. I watched them all winter, after mom passed, wondering if there was anything salvageable, wondering if there was even anything worth salvaging.
A windowsill of twisted-together roots from unknown-to-me cuttings, some green with slime, some shriveled with… dried… green slime powder coating. I wasn’t sure I could touch any of it. I wasn’t sure I could forgive myself if these fragile lives died on my watch after having survived a year of absolute neglect aside from their windowed therapy of the morning sun. Mom? Grandma? They’d have been all in – pearls, dirt, and slime – fearlessly tending each life. They’d have saved every root.
From my heart to yours,
I like the spider plant named moma Heidi
Thank you, Aunt Mar! 💜💜💜