Musings

Things That Don’t Grow

I water dead plants.

Photo by Samuel Ramos on Unsplash.

I water dead plants. Not always, but I have done it.

Initially it was always one and the same plant in fact. I had poinsettia — the (usually) beautiful red Christmas plant — that dried up. Instead of throwing it away, which I do with flowers if they die, I kept it as if it were still alive.

Even flowers have their end. I learn to let them go. I would not cling, certainly not water them when there was no more life in them…until that plant. I left it in the pot as a decoration. It evoked a sentiment from a poem I wrote long ago:

I would like to live like a winter tree
Open to new life
And yet in peace
Not demanding anything

And though every season in life
Offers its wisdom;
Among the freshness of spring
The summer joy
Or autumn’s plenty
I would still choose
The freedom of
A winter tree

Its stillness
Arrogantly attracts my soul,
A winter tree knows not to cling
To what cannot be
And then again
It teaches that
The best in life
And Life itself
Always starts
Within

That dried up poinsettia reminded me of winter trees.

But water it? Why water a dead plant?

A few years ago when I moved house, I wanted to take that plant with me. Silly? Well, perhaps. I cannot remember, though, what I did with it. But I still had the ‘mother plant’: the plant out of which the other grew before it dried. This original one was still alive. I replanted it when I moved — it grew fresh, green leaves. It looked healthy.

Someone suggested I try and make it go red before Christmas. At that time in my life I took pride in having green fingers. However, I did not have any proof or reason to think that I also have ‘red ones’. You might guess, the experiment failed and unfortunately the plant dried out. But I kept the plant. I still have it, in the kitchen, in the soil. I even watered it at times.

Yes, I watered a dead plant.

Why? I mean, why not, but nonetheless… Why?

Then I realised; the plant is a symbol of me and my life. All the parts inside that were ‘dead’, bruised, abused, hurt, scared, terrified, blocked, frozen. The little me, the child that has not grown up, everything that seemed unloved — I loved it by watering that plant.

I loved every little part of me that had love stripped away from it. All the dignity that was stolen, that left me bare, in pangs of pain, dead,

dead, dead …

Not knowing I was, because no one killed me with a knife but he did kill me inside. All that pain; I poured love into my hurting soul while I so persistently watered the dry plant — the Christmas plant. I struggled with Christmas in that season of life, because it reminded me that a child in me was hurting, a child in me was alone. And no one knew, no one saw: no one.

I watered a dead plant as I watered hours of my days with tears asking ‘why’. “Why do I have this pain? What is it about?”

I wanted to learn to love myself better, love myself well. I was doing it all along, unknowingly, I watered myself back into life.

© Iva Beranek

Was it worth it?