Two Flowers, Two Lives

via Photo Challenge: Unusual

When I first had my house all to myself, one of the first things I did was buy two potted plants to liven up the walkway leading to my front door. I bought these specific flowers because I raised them at my old house, and they flourished. I’d never had a plant flourish under my hands before. So these flowers felt like family. Of course, I can’t remember their names now.

Little did I know that I would watch, and be a part of, a melodrama of soap opera proportions.

They are like my twins, though you couldn’t tell by the look of them now. They both started off much the same way. They’ve always been in the same places, side by side.

It was almost immediately after bringing them home that I noticed trouble. They were withering. Maybe they aren’t getting enough sunlight. I move them, but they still look like shadows of their former selves. Maybe too much sunlight. I move them; they look like sagging and tired versions of their former selves. More water. Nope. Less water? Nope. Speaking to them. Pep talking them. Rubbing them sensually. Rubbing them sensually and talking to them at the same time. Nothing.

Some days I’d come out and be surprised that they are looking so good all of a sudden and of their own accord it seemed. Sometimes I’d come out and look over them with shaking head and deep frown and say my good byes. I’ve bet on their last day of life dozens of times.

Sometimes one looks better than the other. They are always side by side. Once, one of them got knocked over and looked pretty bad. The other one stood tall next to it and flourished. I got the other back on it’s roots and it began springing back to life as the other, for some reason unknown to me, began to fade.

There have been some hard rains lately, and it rains every afternoon. The guy that had been on it’s side for a period has now been uprooted. I saw his corpse lying in a puddle of water in his pot one day. I didn’t touch him though. I figured he’d already survived so much, why not leave him there and see what happens? Nature has a strong will to survive is what I’ve learned.

I watched one day from my window while my dad pulled up in the driveway, looked at the lump of brown stems laying in the pot and threw it into a corner of the garden. Well then, but who knows, right?

In it’s place has grown a weed, while the other plant, which looked like death last week has produced flowers for the first time in a while. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and all.