THE PHILODENDRON
“She always had at least one successful philodendron, whose stems could be snipped off and placed in water, where they thrived with no soil and very little effort.”
My mother did not have a particularly green thumb, but she had a great sense of humor. Near her potted plants, she displayed a framed Earl Engleman cartoon featuring a woman in cat-eye glasses leaning over some fallen flora, asking, “Was it something I said?”
She always had at least one successful philodendron, though, whose stems could be snipped off and placed in water, where they thrived with no soil and very little effort. The built-in bookshelves in my childhood living room were thoughtfully arranged with framed photographs, knickknacks and philodendron cuttings in vases of all different shapes. This, I learned, was how you could have greenery in pretty much every corner of your house. For my mom, the point wasn't to propagate new plants—it was just a frugal way to share the love.
She enjoyed interior decorating and making a home come alive, something she had numerous chances to do after she and my father divorced and she sold our house and moved into a series of drab rentals. Eventually she got to put her flair to use professionally; at 65, following years of working as a secretary to help put my father through chiropractic school, then staying home to raise my brother and me, then working part-time, minimum-wage jobs once she and my father split, she got a full-time job showing model homes for a local builder. She delighted in helping prospective homeowners pick out their flooring, cabinets and countertops.
When she was 67, almost two decades after her divorce, she bought her own home, in a 55-and-over community: an airy three-story townhouse complete with a loft and cathedral ceilings. She’d helped so many people fulfill their home-ownership dreams, and now, at an age when most people downsize, she finally fulfilled hers too.
She outfitted her home with elegant things she’d saved from our first house. She started entertaining again, trying new recipes, joyfully creating tablescapes with eclectic candle holders and bird-shaped napkin rings she called her “bits of whimsy.” She had an entire cupboard filled with napkins for every occasion and often lit a candle in the kitchen, even at breakfast, for “a little ambiance.” She’d always been jokey, but now she seemed to laugh more. She was more at ease. Even her plants came into their own, flourishing by the bay window in their new living room—an area so burstingly verdant that my brother and I took to calling it “the jungle.”
She passed away at 77, after two years of aggressive dementia. My brother and I kept many of her beautiful possessions, speckling our houses with memories of her. When I claimed this earthen jug containing one of her philodendron cuttings, I never imagined it would still be alive more than 12 years later. A resilient flourish from my resilient mom, it seems determined to hold on, much as she held tight to her faculties until she saw me ensconced in my own happy home.
—Jocelyn Jane Cox
Jocelyn Jane Cox’s memoir, Motion Dazzle, about becoming a mother while she was losing her own, will be published by Vine Leaves Press on September 30.
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I love that this Keepthing has a life of its own.
What a beautiful essay, Jocelyn!