Making The Tough Choices

I've had this plant for over 14 years. I have no idea what kind of a plant it is. Up until yesterday it was growing in a large ceramic planter where it had lived out the majority of its life ever since I rescued it from an empty cubicle in the office where I was working at the time. We had just suffered our first round of layoffs in 2004 as the business started to slow down and the owner of the plant was one of the first casualties. She was so upset over being let go that she just threw her stuff in a box and marched out in tears. I don't know if she just forgot the plant, or if she just didn't have room for it at home and had to make the tough choice to leave it behind. Of course, being the plant lover that I am, I could not handle seeing the poor thing sitting all alone with no one to take care of it, so I marched right over and moved it to my desk where it lived until, after yet another round of layoffs, the company merged with another one in 2006 and the entire office was let go. So my little adopted plant  came home with me. 

Over the years she outgrew several pots. I tried my best to find out what kind of a plant it was but was never successful. She just kept growing and growing, and I just kept re-potting and re-potting into larger and larger pots. A few years ago she started to lose her bottom leaves while her top ones kept growing larger and larger. The problem was that the ones she lost on the bottom exposed her spindly stem that also kept growing taller and could not hold the weight on top. I kept tying it up to pieces of wood and plant stakes but finally, after all these years, it was obvious that this could not go on. I would need a plant stake the size of a broomstick to keep it from falling over and snapping in half as more and more bottom leaves died while the top leaves just kept growing and the whole thing got taller and taller. I finally had to make the tough choice to cut it down and see if I could re-root it. After all these years, and moving it from not one but two homes, I thought we would just grow old together. In my mind I kept seeing it start to root so that I could replant it and keep it going, but in my heart I knew that the chance of that happening on a plant this old was not great. It was like pulling the plug on a friend. Sometimes you just have to make the tough choices.

The funny thing was that from the moment I put it in the water, the leaves started opening up wider and the color became greener and more vivid. I swear it almost looked happy. Could it be that there was still some life left in the old girl? My heart gave a little lurch of happiness. It may only be a temporary thing, but then again maybe not. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying for her to pull through.

Sometimes we have to make tough choices, the kind we wish we didn't have to make but know deep down inside that it has to be done. It may be a decision to move away from friends and family, or quit a job and go out on our own, or finally cut the apron strings and let our little birds grow up and fly on their own. Whatever it is, it takes courage and a whole lot of faith to follow your gut and do what must be done, but when we do, sometimes, like today, things look a whole lot greener!

Ad so it is.