This post got lost in my draft folder from Spring 2021 but I still like it so why not post it.
Several weeks after my mother died I finally made it to her house to sort through her hoarder paradise. It was a house I’d never been to before, hadn’t seen in any pictures so it was a foreign place in that respect but it was full of things my mother had been dragging about for decades and smelled like her.
I stumbled in, late at night, after driving 1300 miles by myself over two days. I’d never traveled so far by myself let alone during a pandemic I was at high risk of dying from. My aunt had been kind enough to leave some lights on and warned me that the front door stuck. So I yeeted my things onto the kitchen table after I cleared it off, took a hot shower in the nasty smelling sulfur water and collapsed into the bed my grandmother once slept in.
The next month was non-stop sorting, chucking and packing, in a strange house alone. There were a couple of trips to the grocery store that had surprisingly little food, a trip to the lawyer to prove who I was and set the legal process in motion and an uncomfortable trip to the funeral home to pick up her ashes but otherwise it was just me, the house and lots of stuff.
I don’t mind being alone but this was extreme isolation, even for me.
Standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window, wondering if there was anyone else out there alive (seems people in the Florida panhandle don’t go outside much in the summer, it’s just too damn hot) I noticed that there was a spot of green on the windowsill. It was a tiny little chunk of plant that had been left behind by my aunt when she rescued the houseplants before I arrived.
The nubbling was from a plant my mother had for years. She had acquired the original nubbin sometime around the time my eldest was born in the mid 90’s. I was working for the family business at the time and remember her showing up with this scrap of plant that she actually managed to root. In time I took a nubbin from the plant and it’s upstairs safe from the cats behind my bedroom door. Seems it’s a delicious plant.
This nubbling on the window ledge in Florida was still green even though it had been a month or more since it had fallen off the mother plant. I was avoiding dragging another bag of garbage to the curb so I found a container, scooped some dirt out of the yard and planted it.
The rest of the time I was there it lived on the nightstand next to my bed. It felt good to know that there was something alive in the house beside myself and the palmetto bugs. I named it Hortense for no particular reason and started every day by saying good morning and ended every night by saying good night.
The dirt from the yard was horrible stuff that packed right down into hardpan but luckily I found an open bag of potting soil in the garage that was too full of literal garbage to ever fit a car. Hortense didn’t do much growing while I was spending my time chucking and sorting but at least it didn’t die and seemed to even get a bit plumper and more green with the new surroundings.
Driving back to New England I kept Hortense in the cup holder right next to me and brought it into the hotel when I stopped for the night. I didn’t want it to fry in the hot car or get lost in all that I was bringing back.
I stopped for food in New Jersey because even though I was only a few hours from home I knew I wouldn’t make it through NYC without sustenance. Bolting back onto the highway from the rest stop I pulled a fry from the container and accidentally knocked Hortense over. It fell down between the seat and the console and disappeared into the darkness of the car. I pulled over on the ramp and looked for Hortense but couldn’t find it in amongst all the chaos. I figured it was gone.
It seemed silly to cry over a plant nubbling even as I was doing it but sometimes it’s easier to cry over the silly things. If I cried over the big things I’d never stop.
Once I arrived home, the youngling and her father, all of us masked because I’d been traveling through plague country, helped me unload the car. It was horrible to not be able to hug her after a month away but I was in quarantine for two weeks to make sure I hadn’t brought anything deadly back. Once the car was empty and I was alone again, I did a hard target search of every nook, cranny and dark space of the car looking for Hortense.
I found it, replanted it for a third time and put it in a place of honor, and good sun, on my desk.
A few months after we got home, Hortense started to produce a little bud right on top. I was so excited to see proof of life. Tragedy struck again when I knocked off the bud when opening the curtain so we could share the sun. So I took a piece of cardboard and built a shield to protect any future buds from the curtain and my clumsiness.
The other day the girls and I went to the garden center for the first time in over a year. It’s time for pansies and lettuce and it’s a safe place for a socially distanced outing. I’d noticed the other day that Hortense had four buds on top and I wanted a new pot for it. Found a purple one I liked but then the eldest picked up a beautiful cobalt blue one for only a couple of dollars more. So I bought the blue pot, proper succulent potting soil and lots of pansies.
It’s Easter and the younglings are with their father for a few hours so I figured it was as good a time as any to re-pot Hortense. The day before I’d found some pretty rocks to put in the bottom of the pot for drainage and a bit of landscaping fabric to keep the dirt where it belongs. I snuggled it into its new home and gave it a good drink.
Now we’re sitting here at my desk, the window cracked for a bit of fresh spring air and Hortense is settled into its new home. Adventures hopefully over for the near future.
I looked up the meaning of Hortense, its from Latin and means gardener.
Can’t think of a better name for a plant. Maybe someday it’ll grow into the name.
