The Daddy Plants

When daddy died a little over a year ago, food, plants and (believe it or not) ceramics started showing up at Mama's house. We ate the food (most of it, at least--I brought some of the good Southern pork shoulder that you can't get in Texas back home), and she put the ceramics up on a shelf in the living room. But the plants were taking over her living room. It looked like a florist shop.

When I left to come back home, she insisted that I take one of them with me. I told her I'd probably just kill it. I'm not real good with house plants. Still, she insisted.

I picked out a peace lily. She had another 3 or 4, so I figured she probably wouldn't miss the one I took.

I brought my plant back home, and it immediately started to die. It's not my forte, but I was determined to keep this one alive.

So I went to Lowe's and got some fertilizer stakes. The plant perked up real good. So good that I had to split it into two pieces and put them in different pots.

They languished at first, not getting enough light. The two did not look happy in any way. They were living in a poorly-lit dining room. So I decided to take them outside.

That worked for a while. As long as I kept them watered. They started growing and turning a shade of dark green that looked healthy instead of getting brown around the edges of their leaves.

Then we had a hurricane watch. The storm was tracking straight for us, so I cleared most of everything off the porch, including the plants that seemed to weigh so much more than they ever did before.

And I waited.

Turns out the best place to be in a hurricane is on the dry side. As Ike was barreling in, a strong cold front was coming in just as fast from the Rockies. The storm left most of Galveston in ruins and gave Houston the battering that we'd been expecting in Austin. (It took a sharp turn to the north-east, and Mama ended up getting more weather out of it in Tennessee than we did.)

Once it was clear that the hurricane was going to leave us breezy and dry, I put the plants back out on the front porch, again. It's well-shaded, so they get the diffused light they love. And it's been cool enough (not much over 90) that they haven't wilted.

So now, not only do they dress up our porch, they're thriving.

It's nice. Every time I walk out the front door or come in it, I see them. And they remind me of him. And of the continuity of life.

He's gone in one way, but he's still here in many, many others.

As I told my co-workers when thanking them for the flowers they sent, "I wish you all could have known him. And in a way, you do. He's responsible for the better parts of me."

And he's here in my plants.

Mama planted the crepe myrtle someone sent out in the front yard and put the potted bonsai on the front porch. All where she can see them just by walking outside.

And she gave 2 of the other lily's to my sisters. I don't know what they've done with them, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that they've done pretty much like me.

I know too many people who have too many bad things to say about their fathers, but I cannot join their chorus. Mine was good and honorable and hard-working.

That, by the way, is the measure of a man.

He's gone, but I have what he taught me, mostly by example, so he won't die until I do. And even then, he'll probably go on in my niece and oldest nephew (he raised them, too).

What I and my mother and sisters have left, other than the lessons on how to live life, are the plants.

The Daddy plants.