It starts with hope.
On a plant purchasing rampage, after frenzied online searching for the right types, the perfect in-home locations, and containers, they finally arrive. It’s a challenge initially. No one tells you how messy the potting of the plants is, how finicky they are about being watered, how some respond better to light than others. No one tells you how to be a plant mom.
They’re on a watering schedule, and get motivational pep talks. It’s not a given that they’re going to grow but there’s no way they’re going to die. You won’t let that happen.
After some time, you’ve got it all figured out. Which also helps you realize that nobody cares if you’re a plant mom. Everyone you know is a real adult. They have kids and relationships and families. They have people. You have plants.
You don’t get any special praise. No awards. No acclaim. No recognition for keeping them alive. You mostly get vacant stares whenever you mention your plants or share endless pictures and videos of them. No one really thinks plants are alive. Oh but they are.
Some days they’re extra alive. Their bodies contort in all sorts of directions to get the optimal amount of sunlight from their spot adjacent to the window. Searching for the light. Always searching. A reminder of their mortality.
You forget about them a little. A missed watering day here. An occasional fallen colorless leaf there. You still care about them even if not always enough to consider their well-being. You want desperately to keep those plants thriving. Vibrant. Green. Beautiful. But sometimes that’s just a lot of work. Sometimes it’s hard even keeping yourself alive.
And then you neglect their existence entirely. You go away for a week. Before racing out the door you throw a bunch of water on their already semi-moist bed. Sure, it’s ahead of schedule. Maybe it’s a bit too much. But you wanted them to know that they weren’t going to be forgotten. That you’d be back. That they wouldn’t starve.
They die anyway.
- Shock. You come home to crisp, dry, brown skeletons. The lush, large leaves now a distant memory. Just ugly, and mostly dead. Your heart sinks. You failed.
- Guilt. But you don’t want to let them go. So you don’t throw them away. That feels too cruel. Their decaying corpses stare back at you on the plant stand in the living room for all to see. A reminder of what once was and what could have been. Months pass. They’re still there. They were once alive. You loved them once. You still do.
- Bargaining. Then it’s time to start over. This time a little smaller. You buy an array of tiny, itty bitty succulents for two windows. 10 in total. Baby plants. A chance to start anew. They’re low maintenance. Low risk. High reward. You won’t care so much if they die. Or at least that’s what you say.
- Depression. You don’t want to imagine life without them. So you set them on the same watering schedule. You give them the same pep talks. They glisten in the sun. Every Friday you water their tiny bodies, careful not to give them too much. But also not too little. Not sure if you’re doing it right.
- The upward turn. They’re so alive, they make you happy. Days pass. Then weeks. Then months. You change their soil, and buy them some pretty, colorful pots. They grow. They grow so much that they’re the biggest succulents you’ve ever seen in your life. You haven’t seen many, but these for sure are the biggest.
- Reconstruction. You did it. You helped them flourish. You made them grow.
- Acceptance. So you bring one to your mom’s grave. And plant it there. To make sure she knows you haven’t forgotten her. Just like you haven’t forgotten the other things you’ve lost: the other plants, people, relationships, versions of yourself that are all gone too.
You hope the plant lives because you used to think that loving something kept it alive. You want to believe that again. Admittedly, a weird thing to think about while sitting at a grave.
But you know in your heart, life has taught you, that when it dies, it dies. Love and all.
It ends even with hope.
Madonna Writes 
Beautiful