Translated…
When my mother was alive, she loved planting, although she had NO professional knowledge, or training in the area, but, in her carefully tending, the kumquat, the aloe, the osmanthus grew well, and started blooming and bearing the fruits as the time came, decorated our home.
My mother used her own methods, and turned the peels of fruits, the roots of vegetables, as well as the tea leaves she’d used, as fertilizers; and from time to time, before I had the chance, to dump out the coffee grinds, my mother had, gotten ahead of me, dumped them into the pots too. I’d asked my mother, that the pots weren’t fertilizer buckets, why did she need to put everything in? So disgusting, and, it’d, attracted the mosquitoes and the flies too! My mother replied, “What’s disgusting? I’m throwing vegetables in, vegetables are plants, they’re not meats, you’d get maggots if you’d thrown the meats in.” My mother’s reasoning sounded doubtful, but, I couldn’t, find any rebuttals. And because of that, the green world that’s come to life on the third-floor, I’d just, stayed far off, and watched. That, was a world that belonged, only to my mother, she’s comfortable in it.
Three years ago, my mother passed, and, those flowers and weeds lacked tending, and one day, as I thought of heading upstairs to see them, I’d found, that most had, died, only the ferns or the vines had lived. In the past, my mother’s favorite kumquat tree would be heavy with fruits, and would fall to the first floor; I’d told my mother, “they had too much nutrition, the fruits fell to the ground, and splatted, so disgusting!”, my mother replied, “That means, I’m planting them the right way, that, was why they grow so well!” After my mother passed, the kumquat that nobody looked after still bore the fruits, but, there were, only, a dozen of the fruits, and, they’d become, smaller and a bit impoverished, didn’t have the plump and healthy feel to them anymore.
Two months ago, a good friend from France came to live at the house, he, who loved gardening, saw that the garden on the third floor didn’t have any life left, started planning, on “revitalizing” the plants. He’d deweeded, tilled up the pot, watered, and placed some grains inside the potted plants, to attract the birds, said that it can create more forces of life to the plants (but I’m thinking, that it only gives off a mirage, and nothing more!). Toward this, I’d not held too much hope, after all, the potted plants had been ignored for three years, and, there were, several containers, pots hovering over them. And still, my friend who has a green thumb had, salvaged those almost-dead plants, some had become greener and started growing, the color of the soil looked right, and, if we dug deeper, we’d found earthworms too.
A few days, I’d gone home to work, and I’d found, that there was, a beautiful orchid inside a blue bottle. I’d thought that my older sister bought it as they’d come back home to visit; but after I looked into it, it was the friend that lived on the third floor, who’d put the flower there. I’d asked him, “Where did you get the flower?”, my friend gloated and told, “from the third floor.”, “How’s that possible? My mother never planted any orchids.” This, I was, more than certain. “Maybe, the birds brought it.”, my friend replied. I’d walked, with my doubts to the third-floor lanai, and found there to be several pot of orchids in full bloom. The maroon-colored flower, really looked beautiful, but, I’d started, wondering about where they came from. “Just treat it as a gift from your mother then.”, my friend saw me still confused, blurted it out, it’d reminded me of how my mother passed, those who came to pay their respects had, sent a lot of orchids to show their final respects to her. As the funeral ended, I’d secretly, stole a pot from the flower baskets, and, implanted it, to the lanai of the third floor…rather than saying implanting, at first, it was, just to get put there, and, at first, I’d remembered to, water it, but then, I’d, forgotten to slowly.
The few orchids that showed up three years ago, maybe, they were, from the seeds that some random birds dropped off, and, it may have been from the few that I’d saved, but later, failed to take care of; they seemed to, wait for the best conditions to come along, to, reemerge from the soil. And, I’d even imagined, more romantically, that it was, a “gift” my mother left for me, through my friend, a response to my missing her, a message of rebirth and new life, a natural order of things.
So, we still can’t tell, how the orchid came into being, but, this just shows, how strong the life of those plants are, and, as humans, we should, learn from the plants, because, we surely can, make ourselves stronger like those plants were, waiting, for the right time, to bloom!