It's the Nature of Things

My part time job in high school was working in my dad’s plant nursery. He was a farmer in the years before he moved to the city and brought his green thumb along for the ride. I was asked to wash pots and propagate mostly. When I was older, I worked for my dad’s indoor plant business and visited offices in my little corporate skirt and watering can. That’s about the extent of my green thumb.

I have three sisters. Josey is a mum to two little boys and Steph is a mum to two little dogs. Felicity is a mum to a vast collection of house plants. When we go away to travel, each of us needs someone to care for our babies.

Sometime in the last two years as I watched my sister’s plant family grow, I started to take an interest in the ‘indoor plant’ idea. I had never attempted to keep a plant before this and although I liked the idea of a nice garden, I was not exactly proactive about its construction or maintenance. Apart from my work with Dad – communing with nature, specifically pot plants - was not really my thing. I have found though that my initial interest has evolved. What started out as one or two plant babies now extends to over 50.  This is how is all started.

When we realised that Thomas had acquired a brain injury during his tumour resection surgery, the things we once did for fun had to be rethought. His ability for movement had to be painstakingly redeveloped and over months and months he worked tirelessly to learn to use his hands again, to sit, to speak, to swallow. Standing and walking was a long way off.

Tom’s and Cam’s favourite activities together which were once all about running, wrestling, climbing and playing – were on hold. And so we looked for seated past-times instead. One of those was to try some gardening. I remember the spring afternoon in early October, we went to put our plan into action. Off to Bunnings we went where the boys chose their gardening gloves, their tools and their favourite baby plants to pot.

We spent the rest of the day on the back patio planting herbs, and vegies as well as our new indoor plants that Cam and Tom would repot and look after. I love the photos I have of the boys working together in the dirt at the ‘potting station’ and how proud I was at the end of the day. Cam’s plant died within a few weeks. I continue to buy replicas and we keep trying. We are currently on attempt number four. In contrast, Tom’s plants survived well and even started to grow.

Six weeks after our gardening day, in mid-November we discovered that new tumours were aggressively growing and spreading through Tom’s brain and spine. Less than two months later, Tom passed away. There are lot of things I cling too that remind me of Tom. His two plants are reminders of him. Those two plants became very important to me when Tom died and so my casual obsession with pot plants did begin. 

It seems very clear and natural to me why I have taken on this new role as a ‘Plant Mumma’. I get to watch them grow, I get to look after them - feed them, water them, turn them, give them a new little home when they get big enough. I feel pride as each new leaf unfurls and worry with each that falls. I become protective as I fend of little bugs that would hurt my little babies or brown spots that show they are struggling.

These plant babies – who all have their own names and live throughout our home and back patio – need me. They need a mum to look after them.  And it seems, I need to mother them. For obvious reasons, I am particularly invested in caring for Tom’s little peperomia and croton plants which he chose on that October day. They are still his plants and they are still going strong – thank goodness!

As I do the rounds, checking on all of them – the lilies, the calatheas, the succulents, the flowers, the pothos, and the rest, I chatter away – sometimes to them, sometimes to Tom, and sometimes to Dad.  I kind of hope that both Dad and Tom are helping me with this plant family I have built. Keeping them alive despite my lack of insight into the finer details of horticulture. 

I know that it might seem to some as somewhat dismissive of my surviving son Cameron that I should need to dedicate some of my ‘mothering’ towards potted plants. What are they compared to my living, breathing gorgeous boy? I adore being Cam’s mum. My relationship with him is incredibly important to me and our path in grief over these past 18 months is too broad a topic to fully explore as a side note in this reflection alone. 

The loss I feel as a bereaved mum of Tom can’t be filled by heaping all of my emotional baggage on to Cameron.  I am mindful of avoiding the natural impulse to ‘over-parent’ Cam in response to losing Tom. I work hard to ensure I don’t smother or spoil or overwhelm him with hypervigilance or dependency. So this is me - a mother. A mother of my twin boys, one who is with me and one who I grieve for. A mother to my pet dog Penny. And now a mother to my many plant babies.

When I think about losing my child to cancer or any parent burying their child for any reason, it is so unnatural. It goes against the natural order of things when that cycle of life is interrupted. Extinguished. There is a saying – the nature of things. It means - the usual and expected characteristics of life. As a parent, you are there to nurture, to protect, to teach, to love, to watch your son grow – this is the nature of things. Watching your son die, living without him - that is not the nature of things. But when it happens, you have to find ways to cope. Sometimes that means channelling Mother Nature and adopting 50 plants. 

I watched a short video of a small mother bird sitting on her nest on the ground in the middle of a field. This mother had eggs nestled under her and there she was - doing her job. Vulnerable little eggs not yet hatched but her baby chicks none the less. They were under her wing and they were under her protection. You can’t see the looming danger, but you can hear it. The drone of a tractor engine bearing down on this small nest in the middle of the field. As it looms above her, this brave mumma bird spreads her wings over her nest to protect her babies.

Even as the tractor passes over the mother bird, she remains with her eggs, stoically refusing to move. The tractor proceeds to drive and the nest escapes destruction as the wheels pass on either side of it and the cabin casts its shadow over the small family. Just as the harvesting blade at the back of the tractor is about to meet the mother bird, the farmer lifts the blades carefully sparing the family and continues on its way. (This is the link if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/WLQ2s1UGn2c)

I remember as I watched this video, my heart was in my throat. There was no way to save her nest from what was coming. No time to move her little ones to safety, but she could stay with them. She kept them under her wing and stood her ground. That is the nature of things. That is what a mother bird does. While Tom was sick, I did the same. I believe I felt just like that mother bird when his cancer returned, and death loomed over us. I wish my stoicism would have been enough to lift the cancer away from Tom, but it was not.

When the boys were as young as 2 or 3 I would read to them every night.  I’m not sure if they loved the books or if their favourite part was the cuddle that came with the story. I would tuck each little head under each arm on either side of me. I would say, “Come on, under my wing”. 

Tom usually took the left and Cam took the right although it changed up a bit when Tom was sick. We would read the story and then came the requests to hold off bedtime for just a little bit longer.  Such creativity – a plethora of ideas for night-time giggles. Such as: Bed fort – Pulling up the blanket to cover all of us as we would make up tales of this magical bed-fort. Sunset snuggles – the boys would turn off the lights and only the glow from the corridor would illuminate the room. We had to quieten to whispers when sunset happened. Light show – we would use torches or laser lights on the walls and mirrors to create spectacular displays in a dark room.

For more physical options they came up with: Timber! – the boys would stand as stiff as boards and let themselves fall forward onto the bed right on their faces. I would judge on how straight their technique was and they would try and try again. One would sometimes get creative and add in a twist or a variation to astound us all with their courage and skill, which would be quickly copied in competition.

Their favourite by far though was if a wrestle would start up.  Climbing over, catching limbs, escaping holds, and ‘stacking on’ to take the win. Crazy noises from each to prepare each other of the next move. Chaos and giggles through it all. Cam still notes these bed fights as his favourite memory with Tom. 

So many glorious times I had with my two cherubs each night from when they were toddlers and into their early school years. I could see them in the tall mirrors across from the bed as we read our stories and see their little faces reflecting back. And however it finished up, each night it always started the same way – with Cam and Tom under my wing. Where they belonged.

Only one wing has a baby chick to hold now. Sometimes having ‘readers’ with Cam is hard on my heart. I miss that gorgeous second face looking up at my finger on the page. His warm little body wrapped up in flannelette pyjamas and cuddled all the way down my left side. I know I am so fortunate to still have my right wing enveloping my precious Cameron. I am truly grateful – believe me. But my heart will always hurt because my left wing is without Tom – and well … that’s just not the nature of things.

No amount of plant babies will change that. But I look after them anyway. So too, no amount of wishing for a return to the natural order of life can change that. But I wish for it anyway. Because ‘the usual and expected characteristics’ of this version of my life without Tom insists that I will always wish him back under my wing where he belongs.