GRIEVING THROUGH PLANTS
Against the cold glass window of my bedroom is a spider plant. Three mothers crowd the hanging pot, thin plastic painted with mushrooms, fading. The children hold on by a nurturing thread, prepared to put roots down as soon as I bring out the scissors. Against the other window is a pothos. She is glossy with lime-green leaves, heart shaped, and long vines that I stretch in each direction to hang, medusa like. There are some others, a few cactuses, a couple palms, and some outdoor plants from the summertime that I am doing my best to keep inside this winter, alive. I was pessimistic at first, but we’re pushing April and I’m feeling better about their futures.
The relationship between plants and humans is profoundly mutualistic- a term used to describe the biological benefits between different species. Rooted and imaginative, we help each other out. Naturally, my plants provide me with oxygen and I return carbon dioxide for their photosynthetic needs. In a constant cycle of breath, we depend on each other.
{But I wonder beyond the breath.}
I have read that keeping plants in the home can trigger the release of oxytocin in the body, a bonding hormone released by our heart and hypothalamus, forming a bond as between a mother and a child. The spider plant and pothos have led me to wonder what truly resides in the bond between human and plant.
{Do they know when their caretaker dies?}
I have always known a home with a plant in each corner and space of afternoon light; spaces occupied by the kind of plant that has been alive for 20 years, and you can sense it has lived a life as complex as your own. Sturdy, they know exactly what they need, and so do you. I thank my mother for this, she has the green thumb. I believe a green thumb equates to attention. Love too, but I think it always boils down to attention. The focus, the energy, the breath, I suppose you either have it to share with plants or you don’t.
When my PopPop died last year one of the first things that departed from his estate were the houseplants. He did not have many, but the ones that kept him company were the kind that have been alive for 50 years, the kind that have certainly lived a life more complex than my own. Sometimes I think about the moments they have experienced, situated and growing in the background mirage of my mother’s childhood.
{I wonder what memories are held in the leaves, the stems, the soil.}
There was a bonsai tree, which when I looked at its ancient structure, strange thoughts about its life after PopPop dawned upon me. Strange only because he would be alive, sitting a few feet away from me while I mused the ideas in the secrecy of my mind, knowing the plant will surely outlive him. The trunk of the bonsai was thick and curved artfully upwards sprouting its miniature green leaves. That was the obvious appeal of the bonsai— how miniature the tree stood while appearing like it should be standing over 100 feet tall in a forest near Mt.Fuji. Instead, on a windowsill above his kitchen sink in the suburbs of Long Island, the tree sat.
By the time my Mother got around to it, a naked and tired trunk was all that was left. All its leaves had fallen brittle and brown onto the small pebbles surrounding the tree, making rehab a necessity for the plant’s survival. Rehabbing plants is something my Mother is particularly good at. Finding the best light in our house and giving the plant both attention and love, a nurse by trade, she embraced the bonsai tree as her new patient. Since my bedroom sits on the southside of our house gathering the most sun each day, my mother’s ill plants typically end up there— in rehab, beside my bed. For the first few weeks that the bonsai was on my nightstand, I watched my Mother grieve through its care, nursing the nearly dead tree as if it were a living memory of her father.
{Do they feel the grief as well?}
This left me with the spider plant and the pothos, each coming from a different room of his house. One from the study, and the other from the dining room where he spent his final years, sitting. My Mother found it fit to make me the caretaker of these plants and while I felt honored, I did not anticipate the emotions that would come with taking care of a dead person’s plants.
My PopPop and I are close in the way that much of who I am is clearly descended from him. Though we did not have lengthy conversations, our relationship was sturdy. In the final years of his life, it was mostly supported by trips to the grocery store for a can of Campbell’s soup, filling up his bird feeder, and a shared, but undisclosed appreciation for the natural world.
It’s been over a year since he died, and I have not thought about him as much as I thought I would.
I do miss the sound of his tough and scratchy voice, but three voicemails, each no longer than 18 seconds are stored in my cellphone’s mailbox. While at risk in the cloud of the virtual world, these remembrances require neither attention nor love to maintain.
{Do I have a green thumb?}
I have realized that I think of him most when I water and tend to his plants, or I guess I should say our plants. I am still trying to understand\\disentangle that//this.
Through caring for our plants, I have experienced:
The importance of attention, and offering it as a gift: I’m listening, what do you need?
To remain open to change, and to flow onwards with it: elevate to warmer light, less water.
Let go of what no longer serves me, because we must create space for more: prune.
Take care, and tell those you love, that you love them, even if they take the form of a houseplant: I love you.
Filtered through their leaves, the breath of air and the opening of tiny white blooms with each new day, it turns out our plants are thriving. Like the spider plant and the pothos dependent on me to provide them water, and move their pots based on the shadows, I have come to understand that I am dependent on them
to grieve
to pay attention
to love
and to breathe.
Lindsay Eberhart is a storyteller, farmer, and recent graduate from SUNY-ESF. Her academic interests are centered around food sovereignty and how we can access a deeper connection to and with our environments via the food we grow and consume. Currently she has work featured on Planetforward and with a residency at Craigardan soon to begin, she hopes to explore the nexus of science and art for many years to come.
