The Plant that Won’t Die

This basket was sent to my grandfather’s funeral by my (then)18 year old babysitter and her family.  K doesn’t like to be referred to as the babysitter anymore, we call her our first born! When Hubby and I first got married my sister was pregnant with my first nephew.  She took a job caring for 2 little girls during the day and when she had appointments and when she had the baby I helped her out.  Shortly after my nephew was born she had to move out of town and the 2 girls became my daytime job.  I shouldn’t really call it a job.  I really enjoyed both of the girls and loved spending my days with them.  I stayed on with them for almost 3 years and in those 3 years I got so close to the girls that after they were both in school we remained in contact. Out of both girls K has stayed the closest.  We have road tripped together, laughed and giggled together had a few drinks together…We are friends.   

I wasn’t really surprised to see a tribute from K and her family when we arrived at the funeral home for the first visit.  This girl is wise beyond her years and she enjoyed going to Nana and Grampa’s house as much as we did.

When we were leaving to come home after the funeral I picked a piece of one of the plants off to bring home and start my own so that I would have a part of the basket for myself.  The slip survived the long journey home in February and sat in the kitchen window in a glass of water for weeks.  Finally it had roots and I picked up a little blue pot at the dollar store and put it in some soil.  I didn’t grow a whole lot, but held it’s own.  In April friends of ours were going to be overseas for almost 2 weeks and asked if we would watch their cat.  I said yes and brought the cat home with me to meet our cat.  After a few days the 2 cats became fast friends again.  They stayed together while we were away at the funeral at our friend’s home.  Our guest cat seems to like eating the leaves off of plants.  I thought for sure that my plant was done.  I moved it into the bathroom window where it gets plenty of light and can’t be reached by any of the felines in the house and it grew leaves again.  I was really excited.

The plant grew to be about a foot tall and I though it was time to cut it in half and put another piece in water to root.  The piece in the water is doing well, no roots yet, but the plant in the pot went brown and died.  I just left it hoping it would revive itself and nothing seemed to be happening.  Because it is up in the bathroom window I can’t see into the pot unless I actually take the pot off the sill and look.  I did this the other day thinking that I’d pull it out and wait for the other piece to show some roots and then I’d put it in and see what would happen.

Here is what I found when I looked into the planter today.

The plant that won’t die!!