I am notorious for killing plants. Cacti have even died under my less than watchful eye. My thumbs are black instead of green. I have made it very clear over the years that I suck at taking care of plants. My sister sent me one as a housewarming gift when I bought my house. She laughed her ass off when I called her the day it was delivered and exclaimed, "What the HELL did ya do THAT for?!?!?". I actually DID keep it alive for quite awhile but eventually abandoned it in Montana in February 2004 to a fate unknown. Hell, I barely made it back from there alive, ya can't expect me to have kept track of that damn plant!
I have made it a "tradition" of mine at the funerals of my Grandma and Grandpa Dooley and my Grandma 'Cille to take a pretty "fake" arrangement in a nice container, so that after the "flowers" get too dirty to display, I can keep the basket or vase as my remembrance of them. I don't think I'd be able to handle experiencing their deaths over again by killing a plant I attach to their memory.
That fateful Montana experience cost me more than my sister's housewarming gift and the many, MANY consequences and pains I've dealt with, but the absolute worst one that can NEVER be recovered from, was that I wasn't able to get back in time to say good-bye to my Grandma Powell. I got back two days after her burial. Too late to hold her hand one more time. Too late to kiss her weathered cheek. Too late to mourn this woman I loved, with the rest of my family. Instead, my sister took me to her grave a few days later. It was cold. It was overcast. It was over and I had missed it all through my misguided choices. Ronda let me kneel there and weep alone at a time when I had never felt so quite alone. I asked for my Grandma's forgiveness that I hadn't been there. Funerals may not be anyone's favorite things, but for me, they are my one last chance to let that person know that they mattered deeply to me and I ache for just one more minute of their time. So here I was, wishing for that one glance and praying that she knew somehow that I was there. I took a small clod of dirt from her freshly turned plot and put it in the ashtray that I'd never used in my car. That was my only memento from the private service I had just attended. My reminder that I had lost someone I loved.
Fast forward to last year, July 2009... I totalled my car. The title had been signed over to the insurance company. I had cleaned out the car of my belongings and was ready to go, when I remembered I needed that ashtray that I had tucked in the console with that small piece of dirt. I had carried it with me for 5 years, periodically opening the ashtray and saying a few tear filled words now and then. I had talked to that dirt the night I almost purposely ended my life in that car, planning on putting it somewhere outside the vehicle so she wouldn't have to "see". It meant something to me. I planned on carrying it with me forever. So, it got transferred to the new car. Same make, year and model, same safe place to keep my piece of dirt/peace of mind.
Fast forward to January 2010... My sister gave me another plant. This one, was huge. I could barely lift it. It was a portion of my Grandma Powell's Mother-in-Law's Tongue plant, that belonged first to her mother. My Grandpa Powell had seperated and transplanted the plant into several different pots and asked that they be distributed. I brought it home with me and vowed I would take care of it and not let it die.
I decided a few months back that I wanted to seperate and transplant it some more, to make it more "manageable" because it was taking up so much space in my house. Sunday, Independence Day, I sat down with that monster of a plant and four empty pots. As I broke up the original dirt, I realized it was dirt from my Grandparent's home. A home that was just recently sold, as my Grandpa has been moved to assisted living. I will never be there again. The ground I walked since I was able to walk is no longer part of the family. The dirt I had my hands in was dirt my Grandpa owned through the lives of my mother and her siblings and all of their children. The ground that my grandparent's had built not one, but two homes on in their life together. And this was all I had left of it. I started literally trembling.
Then, I remembered my little piece of dirt. My small piece of my Grandma's memory. I got the ashtray out of the car and started bawling as I opened it and took out that piece of earth. I held it in my hands and told my Grandparent's how much I love them. Then, I crumbled it onto the pile of THEIR dirt and cried more as I mixed the soils together. It finally made sense to me why this dirt had been so special to me. It was meant to be used to replant the roots of a family plant. MY family. OUR dirt. OUR tears. I won't ignore these plants. They're going to take root and grow showing me every day that I love my family, whether I can look in their eyes or not. I'm pretty sure my Grandma was smiling on the 4th of July. I was, even as my tears watered those newly potted plants... :)
