“Dear Mommy,” the letter from my six-year-old daughter, Leigh-Ann, said. I opened it up. Inside was a drawing of a sorry-looking plant that was missing most of its leaves. “Bloom, Suzie!” she’d written at the bottom. I had to laugh. I knew just who Suzie was…
It was my last month of college and I was working full-time. My mother, who lived three hours away, had taken Leigh-Ann up to her house for a few weeks while I finished up exams. Leigh-Ann loved Mom. After all, Mom was a character! She had a great sense of humor…and a funny habit of naming inanimate objects. Her first car was Daphne and, you guessed it, her favorite houseplant was Suzie, a prized African violet.
Suzie bloomed the most beautiful, vibrant purple flowers I’d ever seen. Mom would show her off to everyone who stopped by. “Isn’t Suzie something?” she’d say, as if Suzie were a person. I had to admit, Suzie really was a spectacular plant. Leigh-Ann had drawn her many times, always with big, full buds.
But lately Suzie had been dormant. Mom tried everything—new plant food, putting her on a different windowsill, more sunlight, less sunlight. Nothing worked. Suzie was all out of bloom! I held Leigh-Ann’s latest drawing in my hands and knew she was confused. “Don’t worry about Suzie,” I’d told Leigh-Ann when I called her that night. “Grandma won’t give up on her.”
Three years passed. Just before Christmas, Mom died. The grief was overwhelming. After her funeral I loaded up most of her clothing and donated them to her favorite charity. That’s when I saw Suzie. “Can I take her?” I asked Dad.
“She’s hardly got any life in her,” he said. “Are you sure you want to keep her?”
He was right. She looked worse than I’d imagined. But Mom wouldn’t have given up. Taking care of Suzie would help me honor her. I put Suzie in the back seat and set off on the long, snowy drive home.
Four hours later, I pulled in my driveway and reached back for Suzie.
She had bloomed. They were the most beautiful, vibrant purple flowers I’d ever seen.
