Strelitzia

Only once did my plant ever die. Last week. It was a strelitzia. And I never nurtured anything so vigorously.

Did you say he gave you a plant for your birthday?

"Yes, beautiful Strelitzia. You know, tenable."

Was it the red that could have given it away? No, it was the red that made it beautiful. There was something about it looking like a careless, sophisticated farmer splashed a few drops of wine in the vineyard of green and made the stain stay. The wine splash popped up in the near-root middle, followed by a more vivid yellow and its outer layer was the green vividness of life.

?"Hmm, it means he wants to grow with you", Peter said from the other side of the phone that night.

"Hmm, I agree with that. That's the only answer I am taking," I told Peter.

I had my early years on a farm, and none of my plants ever died. The first plants I knew how to tend were Oil palm trees. Way older than me, but I knew how to make many things from careful cuts from its branches. Brooms. Really nice brooms sculpted with a blade. And how to get those fruits into the basket for red oil and my grandma mix some ashes and other things to make black soaps for sale --which I end up eating.

I kept a cactus and travelled with it across bad roads, accidents and deaths. It stayed with me for seven years.?

And then, there was this Strelitzia. The first birthday he became present in my life. It was a Strelitzia he offered. Peter said it meant he would be in my life for so long, and he wanted to grow with me. So, I tended the plant. "Stay with me", I muttered every night before I sleep.

My sublease landlord gave me a hard deadline to move out in July, and that morning, without notice to anyone close or far, I took my things out, waiting for Sam to deliver me to a shortlet in town. I took my plant first. And when the woman welcomed me and wanted to help me get my things in, she had my carry-on and made to carry the flower in its vase with her weaker hands, together, at one go. I had a vigorous objection displayed all over my body before it came out of my voice.

"Please, I will take this last," I told her. I realised now that I was nearly plugging the kind woman's hands off it. She smiled with understanding, like only she knew the mind of God. And I took my plant in last. Wrapped in both my hands, totally enveloped.

When two weeks later, I finally found a place I could call home again, I took him with me. There was the green private park overlooking my room, and I had set it just right by my bookshelf. Where the morning sun could tend to it, it does not need too much attention, but it does need specificity.

I went home to my mum for a month. To Nigeria. And as I gave my key away to a sublease, I told her. "I just want you to help me take care of this plant. Nothing more" She smiled at me.

Upon the joy and suffering that tended to me in Lagos, the bittersweet experiences that would be worth a lifetime memory and the relief of coming back home, and upon the mere sight of the dusty ash of the plant sitting right there. Well-watered. Quite well choked out of life with water, I sign into my last phase of grief.

The fellow had faded its yellow inside to a little between black and ash. Like something the farmer got bored of and smoked over, leaving ashes that stained the orchards of flowers. The vivid yellow got too touched by this stain and dimmed.? Some things don't just last enough, and why should we suffer on their account? What if he offered a promise he could not keep? What if he offered a promise he did not know about?

I called Peter last night. "Look, I know you are not so much a good friend when it comes to my man issues. You give the wrong advice all the time. I knew you were wrong about the plant, but it was you alone who gave me hope. So I kept it. But it is dead now. I will let him know how I feel. Life is too small to wonder if he will stay or not. You were lying. He never committed to staying. He never even knew why he picked up the most random plant, even, and showed up with it. But you know, the vase is beautiful. It was the first to break, and now the plant is gone, too. I think I know exactly what to do now"

Peter laughed hard and muttered, "Yemisi. Good for you. I am happy for you"

Strelitzia: Also known as Bird of Paradise Flower

If it looks like a bird of paradise, it's probably meant to fly.

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