During my first semester of pharmacy school things were rough for us as a family because we lost a pregnancy/proto baby (and because of pharmacy school and moving and me being very ill while pregnant). During a particularly bad moment in all of that, the spouse and the kid got me a lovely miniature rose (from the grocery store, on clearance, but still) in an effort to cheer me up. I really like gardening, but I don't get to it often enough. I do have a rather large collection of house plants (complete with fortifications to keep out the cats). My house plant collection includes my very first, independent, grown-up, pet plant named Phil. Phil the philodendron is now almost 9 years old, in his second pot, and still doing very well.
Anyway, things didn't go so well in the cheering up department and I struggled an awful lot for a big chunk of that first year with being really angry at everyone and everything. I got so caught up in being angry that I lost sight of a lot of things, including that lovely little shrub, and it died. Or really, it dried. I left it sitting on my desk until the cats murdered it, a perfectly preserved specimen of blooms that just died at their peak.
Then in a couple of weeks during midterms or a bad week of exams, they came home with another miniature rose bush for me.
I kinda feel like that was a tipping point in things, the chance to start over and do the right things one after another, starting with caring for the mini-rose bush.
Being not really sure how to care for it, I bumbled along and it quit blooming for several months (maybe that's normal, what do I really know anyway?). Then for finals last year it managed a lone bloom, and nothing since then until now.
Last week the kid was all excited because the rose was blooming, and I was shocked to see that it had TWO blossoms, but in a spot where I wouldn't have seen it without the kid mentioning it.
Since then I've observed it putting out no less than another 10 buds, but none are open quite yet. The first will probably open yet today.
It's amazing how much can change in a year, isn't it?
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