Is This the Best-Travelled House Plant in America?
My mother died in 1988, after my father passed in 1985.
Yes, that was a very long time ago.
After they died, my brother and I divided up a few of their most meaningful possessions. Among other things, I took a house plant that my mother had tended with love.
Years passed. The plant grew to be eight feet tall. (That's big for a house plant, especially if your ceilings are also eight feet tall.)
When I got divorced a few years ago, the plant seemed too big to ship to Utah from Connecticut, so I took a cutting from it and took that with me.
Several more years passed, and I sold my house in Utah and then launched our current journey wandering around the United States. The cutting of the plant was then about two feet tall: too big to fit in a car already packed with our belongings.
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I knew how to solve that problem. I gave the plant to a close friend in Park City, but first took a cutting from it. That's the cutting from a cutting you see in the photo.
This plant, which like me is an offspring of my parents, has now travelled over 4,000 miles with us. On the road, it rides in a plastic crate labelled "DO NOT FREEZE"; my contact lenses and a few other delicate items are also in the box. In warm climates such as North Carolina, the plant spent a night or two in the car. But every time we stop for an extended stay, the plant comes inside and serves as our sole decoration.
Several times, I have been prepared to give the plant away. When I saw my brother on the west coast, I asked him if he wanted it. He pointed out how every plant he has ever purchased died a slow, painful death. The plant stayed with me.
We can't always save the people we love, but in many small ways, we can cherish their memory. And now you know why I own America's best-travelled plant.
P.S. If you have a plant that has travelled more than mine, congratulations! (But please don't tell me.)
Bruce Kasanoff is founder of?The Kasanoff Institute. He helps entrepreneurs and other accomplished professionals craft the story of their best possible future.
Board Member, Brand Builder, Advisor, Volunteer
1 年Love it!
MA TESOL Cultural enrichment through English conversation. Stanford University, Fostering Communication
1 年Love reading your stories because they combine many aspects of the human condition and even more solutions that you have created.
WorkSource (Workfirst) Pierce
1 年It's a beautiful story of a plant Bruce and I happen to have exactly how your plant looks. Thank you for sharing. I just bought my plant for $2 donation she called it. My problem now is that the leaves continue growing but the plant itself is not showing any improvement. I am planning to transfer to a more presentable pot and change the soil, I don't know what to do yet. Thank you for your plant story.
Physicist at freelance
1 年Letting go can sometimes be a very difficult thing. We tend to hold on to a possession or trinket on the hopes that part of that person is with us always. My children it was their hand made crafts, special school work and awards, my dad an old bent and beaten guitar, and my mom, her writings and letters. I have learned though, through belief, that these are just possessions, and I've been holding on to them this whole time, inside my heart. ... thank you for sharing Bruce ... loved the story ... hope that plant sees many generations of your family ... peace always
Employee Health Nurse at St. John's Pleasant Valley Hospital - Recently retired.
1 年I love this post. Thank you. Simply put, I can relate to this very much. Also, your story reminds me of a children's book by Simms Taback, "Joseph Had A Little Overcoat"... where the coat keeps getting reinvented and, in doing so, perpetuates the love and care that was part of the original coat (at least that was part of my interpretation when I read the book). It might be classified as a children's book, but I think it's a book for all ages.