5/29/25

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

Until recently, I never kept very many plants in my home. Partly, it was because I have cats, who see every potted plant as a potential salad bar. Finding creative ways to have plants enhance your home, while at the same time, keeping them out of reach of chewing cats is not easy.

But I also didn’t have plants in the home because my mom didn’t just have a green thumb. She had an entire green body, that I think went down to the cellular level. There were plants inside, there were plants outside, there were plants everywhere. The plants that grew outside, she brought in for the winter. The plants that grew inside, she brought out for the summer. And whenever she and my father went on vacation, she counted on me to take care of them all, which was a request that brought terror to my heart. Some plants got faucet water, some got distilled water, and still others got spring water, from a pipe she and my father found on the side of the road one year. It was a faucet to a fresh spring just underground. The distilled water and the spring water was kept in milk jugs down the basement, on separate sides so they could be told apart.

I never could.

I will admit, as it took a really long time to search the house for all the plants, and then to water the outside plants, they all got faucet water with me. I dumped out an appropriate amount of water from the plastic jugs so it looked like I used it.

I also was required to fill their many bird feeders. I’m terrified of birds, and so I would just stand in the garage door and fling bird seed in the general direction of the feeders. Right before my parents came home, my ex-husband would come and fill the feeders for me.

But plants. In the spring of 2020, in the near-beginning of the pandemic, I ventured out to the grocery store. I was fully masked, I clutched my list, and I planned to get in and out as fast as I could. But as I walked into the store, I also walked straight into a display of hibiscus trees. They were in full bloom, orange and pink flowers everywhere, pointing to the sky like satellite dishes. I stood stock still and admired. It was like walking into a literal interpretation of spring. But that wasn’t what I was there for, and so I smiled at the hibiscus forest and started to move on by.

But a hibiscus branch hooked my sleeve. And suddenly, I was there for a hibiscus tree.

Ms. Hib and I spent that whole first lonely Covid summer together, on my third floor deck. I often had my meals out there, and she and I would talk. She was a great listener.

I didn’t know much about hibiscus though, and in the spring of 2021, Ms. Hib lost all of her leaves and died. Shortly after, so did an amazing student of mine. Her name was Carla. I met her when my daughter Katie went to college and Carla was just down the hall in the dorm. Carla had cystic fibrosis, and the day I met her, she was packing up to go home, because college was just too much for her health to handle. She and I talked for quite a while though, and I told her she needed to write a book.

In 2018, after a double-lung transplant, that exactly what Carla did, while entering into coaching with me. And in 2021, Carla died.

Grieving, I went into Menards, where Michael was working at the time. I was only supposed to pick him up. But when I walked inside, I walked straight into a display of hibiscus. Carla and I, the both of us trapped inside during Covid because of compromised immune systems, Carla from CF and me from breast cancer, had raved over Ms. Hib and her glorious blossoms. Now, I looked at beautiful blooms again. When I walked past the forest to find Michael, another branch grabbed me.

I was there to pick up more than Michael. I named that hibiscus Carla.

Carla stayed with me through April of 2024. Her last bloom opened on the day of the full eclipse of the sun. And she was with me through Michael’s accident and his time in the hospital and rehab. There were some very dark nights when that hibiscus was the only one I talked to. She was there when Michael came home. But she was gone before he went into the hospital for the final time.

After she died, and after Michael died, I stopped at Home Depot to pick up something – I don’t remember what. Sitting by themselves on the pavement were two small hibiscus bushes, on clearance. Nobody had chosen them. We were now into summer, and they hadn’t found a home.

So they came home with me. They were named Righty and Lefty, depending on where they sat. At the time, I simply had no creativity, no energy, not much of anything left in me.

Righty didn’t make it through the winter. But Lefty did, and is with me still. He’s been joined by Joe, a gift from a friend who was a botanist. He brought me a cutting in the spring, and Joe was growing by leaps and bounds. He was named after the Jolly Green Giant doll I owned as a child, and who I called Joe because his name couldn’t be Jolly Green Giant. Now, my startlingly tall green hibiscus became Joe.

But then came last weekend. I went to the grocery store. I had some things I needed to pick up.

I do the grocery shopping now. I do the cooking, or at least, what passes for cooking. These used to be Michael’s jobs.

As I approached the grocery store, I saw some hibiscus on display outside. They stood all together. I started to walk toward their forest, but then I saw her.

There was one hibiscus tree, all by herself, separate from the others, standing on a pallet. She wasn’t in the sun. She was in the shade. And she was alone. She wasn’t blooming, but from what I could tell from the few buds, she might have red flowers.

I stood by her for a bit. I told myself I was there to pick up food for a cookout with my kids for Memorial Day. A hibiscus wasn’t on my list. I already had two hibiscus at home – Lefty and Joe.

But this hibiscus stood all by herself. She wasn’t blooming, like the others. And I knew exactly how she felt.

I brought home the food for the cookout. But I also brought home the hibiscus tree. Her name is now Ruby.

It was still too chilly to bring her outside. So she stood in my office, in front of my plant stand, where, over the years, I’ve added a few more plants. There are plants on my second floor too. And in the classroom, plants line the windows. During the summer, the plants I keep inside go outside. During the winter, the plants I keep outside come inside.

But they all get faucet water.

The day after I bought Ruby, I slept in late as it was a Sunday. When I got up, I staggered into my office to turn on my computer.

Overnight, Ruby erupted. Red blooms everywhere. And other buds about to burst.

She made me feel like I was about to burst.

Now, all three hibiscus, Lefty, Joe, and Ruby, are on my third floor deck, with quite a few other flowers and plants. But Ruby has stolen the show. She continues to explode.

She’s not alone anymore. Neither am I.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.