hospice for houseplants
like i ever stop talking about death
Content Warning: death and loss of a parent. the author would like to remind you it is not shameful or weak if you aren’t in a place to read this right now <3
i only have two modes: i treat you like you’ve known me for ages and know everythiing about me or i treat you like a fool who doesn’t know the slightest thing about me and might get my name wrong. how long i have known you or you have known me has absolutely no bearing on these mindsets whatsoever. sometimes i wonder if people i interact with are just as lost as i am, if they are nodding and smiling and pretending to remember details i forgot to tell them.
mostly, i remain lost in my own little world. [your world is as small as the inside of your head while mine is as large as my heart.]
in the spirit of setting the stage i am going to pretend y’all don’t know me so please, play along [thank you].
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my family collectively caught corvid two years ago. they were all sick, very sick. my pregnant sister ended up in the hospital and was almost put on a ventilator. my brother 1 ended up with blood clots and on medication for months. my niece was so severely ill we were all terrified. but they all pulled through.
all except one.
i was at work when i got a text saying my father’s lungs had collapsed and i needed to get to virginia before he died. i made it home, showered, packed, texted a friend for a ride to the airport and was actually on the plane in less than two hours. from the time i set foot in the airport to when i set foot on the plane was a total of 18 minutes; i ran the whole way through the airport and begged the security and staff to help me and they did. [i will never forget their kindness.]
my father ended up dying. that is it’s own story, for another time. [one i might never tell here.] when it was all said and done and i had come back to florida, it had been close to a month. i walked into my room and smelled….death. all of my succulents were dead, wilted, or dying. every single one of them. i had left death and come home to more death.
i was too numb to be sad. i tossed everything that was clearly lost and set about trying to salvage what was left. over the next two years i would gradually throw out every other plant that i had owned. i would also stop buying new ones. finally, the only one left was the first one i had ever had. her name is jurassic and a neighbour gave her to me during a freeze warning because he didn’t have enough room to bring all of his plants inside. i cherished her. we’ve been together for seven years, at this point, longer than some of my relationships with people. this week i think i have finally lost her as well.
on one hand, it is severely impractical for me to spend the last two years of my life being a hospice worker for my houseplants. on the other hand….could i do anything else?
there is a reason that out of 16 children, i was the one at the hospital the night my father’s end began. i do not turn away. i have never fallen asleep in the garden while Jesus prayed and i have never run from the promise of pain.
i have seen so much death; not just physical death but the death of hopes and dreams as well. i have watched relationships end and wondered why we weren’t gathering at a graveyard to commemorate the loss. i have passed by fallen branches or the bodies of fish on the beach and heard a bell tolling in my head. [remember, you die.] death is everywhere, always, all around us, all the time. [grief’s got her hands all over me.] escaping it is impossible and it is a waste of time to try. even if you were immortal you could not hope to escape the eventual death of everything around you, of everyone and everything you love. [then God said, “it is not good for man to be alone.”2 ]
i remember the first time i heard the word “accompaniment” and finally having a word for my refusal to walk or look away. sad? crying doesn’t bother me. sick? i’ll text you all day. praying? i’ll sit close to you and support you through it. injured? i will clean your house and do your laundry. sleeping? i will keep watch. troubled or upset? i will ask how to love you in that moment and then do whatever it is you need done. if it had been me, way back when, Jesus would not have risen to find Himself alone; i would have been right there, waiting.
i know it is easy to say such things when there is no way for me to prove it and you simply have to take my word for it, but leaving isn’t in me. i am not the type of person who leaves. i never have been and i have no interest in learning how to be. i think this is part of why endings are so hard for me. i exist outside of the general public’s concept of time and see a continuity that lasts well beyond death. contrary to popular opinion, death is not an ending; it is part of how things never end. it is the ultimate irony that people who seek to avoid death because they have falsely assumed it is an ending by default deny themselves the very longevity they are attempting to attain.
leaving people always feels wrong. friendships are meant to start here and continue forever. people are not supposed to be temporary. families should not be broken. the earth was not meant to be used then tossed aside. animals, insects and other creatures are cohabitants; they live on even after they die, their bodies giving back to the earth, their memories giving light to those who outlast them. what if we looked at the people around us, the earth above and below us, all of creation in it’s many forms and acted like it would be there forever? we are broken; we abandoned ourselves first then said “see, how easily others leave us?” existence was never meant to be one long, tragic recounting of loss.
jurassic is ready to go. i’ve been cutting the brown and black parts off of her, transferring her to smaller pots, making sure she has water and sun; i’ve done everything i can to let her know she had the option of staying, if she wanted. but when something is ready to die, it’s hard to convince them to stay [i have been ready to die for years]. i put the little that is left of her outside. she will appear to shrivel and die but that is not her whole story. it does not end here.
the days of me buckling jurassic into my passenger seat and joyriding across town are over. the days of her existence are not. the days of our relationship are not, either.
for privacy reasons, i drop the “in-law” part when referring to any and all family members. i have 6 brothers and 5 sisters so the idea is you have no idea who i am talking about because it isn’t any of your business. i believe in telling our stories that we must be mindful of other people’s.
Genesis, 2:18, RSVCE