I was trying to raise these plants, see. I've never been much good with plants. I like to think of myself as in tune with nature, and I love trees. They are like godparents, sheltering and shading. And houseplants are like cousins, nephews, nieces. I had a few of them. Started out slow, with a cactus that looked like dragon claws reaching up from the dirt. A succulent--very easy to care for. A few others joined their ranks, more complicated plants with more insistent needs. It felt good, keeping these things alive, these little friends. Watering them, repotting. Caring for them, letting them put themselves under my wing, where there is room enough for anyone.
One day I returned to find my belladonna drooped over and gone. A chill went through me. Pure terror. Premonition. It would all end soon, I thought. All of this illusory power to hold and keep and help the lives of these living, breathing beings. They are not mine, really. They belong to a higher order, that thing that is out there that dictates to us all the spans of lives, the depth of love.
I mourned the belladonna. I mourned the visions I'd have of my abilities. I was distraught.
Today I looked up to see an arm--a whole arm--of the succulent had fallen off sometime during the day. I wasn't there to see it. I couldn't have known how to help it. It looked fine yesterday.
I'm sitting here looking at it. It's falling apart on me and no amount of watering or repotting or turning it to the sun is going to change that. I am helpless. I can fuss over it all I want, click my tongue, touch it lovingly, breathe carbon dioxide onto its leaves, but in a few days time I know it will be gone. Like the other.
It aches. It's a deep down, slow, quiet ache that can be overlooked sometimes, when things get hectic. It doesn't demand much, and it's too steady to cause those jags of heaving pain that can come out as sobs very often. But it does creep up at times like this. An empty kind of longing, as if each breath I take is just echoing around inside, perfectly useless, like I am in such situations. The kind of pain that leaks out from the eyes but despairs too much to be violent.
Well, the cactus is still here, at least, tenacious and joyless on the other dresser.