My grandma is 87 and has a hard time remembering things. She forgets what she did last night and what her neighbor’s name is. She forgets where I live and what I do for work and how old I am (yesterday she asked if I was 25 and I said yep. Who am I to correct her?.
Alzheimer’s is a thief and causes her to forget a lot of things. I’m sure some day instead of asking where I live she’ll ask me who I am and what my name is. But she has yet to forget how to take care of her plants.
In the corner of her apartment are four of the happiest plants I’ve ever seen. Each of them buoyant and resilient and varying shades of green. One of them is passed down from my great-great Italian grandmother. One I gave her for Christmas four or five years ago.
The green thumb gene skipped me, however. I’ve been staring at my fiddle leaf fig’s drooping, dropping leaves for months now, wondering what I’m doing wrong. If I mentioned it to my mom, she would instruct me to pack up the 6 foot plant and drive it over to my grandma’s for some tender love and care.
I’ve been stewing over my grandma’s love for plants since she fell while trying to turn her clock for Daylight Savings two months ago. She hit her head, broke a few bones, was hospitalized and then transferred to a transitional care facility while she healed. For any person, this is an ordeal, but for an older person, it is life-halting. I listened as my mom and her siblings talked a lot about their worries—whether or not she’d make it through or if she’d need significantly more nursing care or if she’d ever go back to the way she was. Simply put, my mom wondered if my grandma’s chapter of living independently may be coming to an end. She was in agonizing pain, forgetful, and confused.
But I held on to a quiet hope when my mom brought my grandma an African Violet to her dismal hospital room. Once that plant was placed on the window sill, you could happen upon my grandma in the worst state imaginable, but if you interrupted her misery to marvel at the plant, she’d pause and tell you a story about it. She’d recall tiny insignificant details and who gave it to her. And she’d smile.
My grandma’s back home in her apartment now, the one with the thriving plant corner. She isn’t quite back to herself, and there are a lot of hurdles to clear. But during a recent visit, she told me she wanted to cut a piece off of the plant that lives in the lobby of her building so she could add to her collection. I smiled at the thought of my grandma sneaking down to the lobby with a pair of scissors and smuggling it back to her apartment.
As it is New Years Day, I thought it fitting to reflect on the importance of cultivating things in your life that do nothing for you but bring you pure, unadulterated joy. Things far away from LinkedIn and job titles and salaries. Things that bring you back to yourself, whatever they may be.
Because eventually, I will age, and so will you. I hope you and I both have a love like my grandma’s to see us through.
A few things for you to click on and enjoy:
I just finished Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead in advance of the forthcoming movie. I keep hearing that it’s amazing and am foaming at the mouth to see it (is this gross to say?). The book was the best one I’ve read all year, which feels like an understatement. Powerful and moving.
Tyler the Creator rapped on a Kendrick beat. The video made me nostalgic for the Oldie / Odd Future days circa 2012.
Happy New Year to your sweet Grandma 💫♥️ I want to see an Oceans 11 type heist movie about her stealing a plant cutting from her lobby. Thank you for sharing, Erin!
So sweet. Loved this ♥️