my houseplants and my great grandma.

A couple of years ago I went out and bought a couple houseplants… That slowly grew little by little and now today, I have somewhere around 20’ish! I love my houseplants, as you probably already know. But it wasn’t until summer of 2017 that I realized my love for houseplants was probably passed down to me.

Growing up, my great grandmother would come up from Florida every September and spend a few weeks with us. During those weeks I would sit in her room every evening and watch her shows with her and ask her every question I could think of (not joking here, every.question.). She’d tell me all about her parents and family growing up, my great grandpa (her husband) and her journey through life (the most fascinating stories were definitely anything around the WWII era!).

Then last summer my grandma, mom, sister, Lilah and I all went down to Florida for a girl’s trip and we were able to spend a lot of time with her. It should have been no surprise to see her home filled with house plants but alas, I was amazed. She even had a long ledge by her window covered in them, just like I do. We bonded, yet again, over something we both loved and had in common. I told her all about my plants and showed her pictures and she told me about hers.

My great grandma has always been a resonating force to me. I’ve loved, and still love having that woman in my life. She is a vision of a life well lived and a beaming inspiration for a life I would be blessed to live. I could go on and on about how wonderful she is, but I’ll spare you the novel and just quickly say that, at 97 years old she’s the sassiest woman I’ve ever met. She still takes care of herself and can cook, email, drive, etc. Amazing is an understatement.

To know that her and I both wake up every morning and admire those glistening, bright green leaves soaking in the early hours of sunlight fills my heart. It also gives me a little more motivation than I already had to keep them around for the rest of my life. I don’t care what Cade says about it! (Just kidding… Cade really doesn’t have a problem with my plants but for sake of sarcasm I pretend he does sometimes.)