Tutu had a knack for bringing things back to life – especially orchids.
Orchids are low-maintenance by nature; they are supposed to be easy to take care of. An orchid need only sunlight, a temperate environment, and once-weekly watering by which a single ice-cube is sufficient. These three conditions guaranteed, orchids should last for fifteen to twenty years. They do not often need to be replaced.
That being said, orchids can die, like any living thing.
Orchids were Mama’s flower of choice for their quiet yet elegant appearance, but mostly because of their low-maintenance nature. Mama was busy raising three girls; to take care of a collection of needy house-flora in addition to being a mother would have been too depleting. Both plants and young daughters require attention and diligence and love, and one’s impeccability does not come without the expense of the other.
Our orchids lived in a temperate environment with direct access to sunlight and received consistent, Sunday watering by a single ice-cube. Still, our orchids were not immaculate. Stray petals sat on the counter-top, briefly, until they were whisked away – a temporary fix. Flower petals still loyal to the orchids turned from white and purple to yellow and brown and lost their once-symmetric features. Sometimes, the only evidence of an orchid was a lone, brown stem in a pot. To still call it an orchid is generous.
When this happened, the orchid – if it could still be deemed that – would not remain on display for long. Like the stray petals fallen onto the counter-top, this time the entire pot was whisked away, and a trip to the orchid nursery was warranted. Our home could not go long without orchids; they were a permanent fixture in our home, as were the paintings on our walls and the carpet in our bedrooms. They do not often need to be replaced. But we replaced them anyway.
A trip to the orchid nursery was a lengthy family affair, each of us pitching to one another this orchid or that orchid. Some days we returned home with a white variant in tow, other times a purple species. Regardless of their color, our choice of orchid was never haphazard, and Mama always had the final say; it ought to be perfect because a precisely symmetrical, full-looking orchid ensured its health and longevity. And yet even our most flawless orchids lasted only a few years at most. The cycle continued. In the sixteen years we lived in our home, we went through tens of orchids.
An orchid turned “junky-looking” would be whisked away but never thrown out. Our lousy orchids went to Tutu. Over the years, as we replaced each of our orchids one-for-one – the number of orchids in our collection stagnant – Tutu’s orchid assortment grew. So much so that she ran out of space on her back terrace for the orchids and expanded her collection to reside in front of her home. Mismatched pots of orchids lined the concrete pathway that led to her front door, and her guests, of which there were frequent, were quick to notice and comment on her unusual abundance of orchids. Equally impressive to her guests was the beauty of her orchids. Each orchid’s appearance was nothing less than perfect: no stray petals lay on the ground beside the pots, each flower was symmetrical, every petal was vibrant and plump, and each stem accommodated an astonishing quantity of flowers.
To any compliments she received about her orchids, Tutu would at most reply with, “thank you.” Most of the time, though, she would change the subject: “So, do you want something to eat? I have lots of snacks, or I can make you long rice.” She never went into detail about how she took care of her orchids, and she especially never shared how each orchid in her collection was brought into her care at their worst – flowerless and dead-looking.
Tutu’s lack of response to her guest’s compliments probably led people to assume she was just some orchid-connoisseur-show-off who invested her retirement funds into the purchase of more orchids than any sane individual needed. Most people likely assumed she went to the nursery and, like us, picked out the most perfectly symmetrical, vibrant, and healthy looking orchid. Their assumptions would be wrong.
Only her closest family knew these assumptions were wrong, but Tutu didn’t care if anyone else knew or not. She had to have known it was no small feat: to bring a dead orchid back to life without a temperate greenhouse like the orchid nursery, or without any little hands to help her disperse ice cubes to each orchid weekly.
Tutu succeeded in nursing every one of our “junky-looking” orchids back to life. And after she restored each orchid to its utmost potential, she maintained their pristine condition. An orchid never died under Tutu’s watch.
That being said, people can die, like any living thing.
Tutu’s death was not sudden. Months prior she had begun to exhibit signs of a steady decline, though it was less noticeable at first. Some days, she would serve us strawberry ice cream instead of her usual homemade brownies for dessert. Still, no stray petals lay on the ground beside the pots. Other days, dirty dishes formed a summit in her sink. Every flower remained symmetrical, and each petal endured, vibrant and plump. Even as she began to appear weaker and frailer each time we saw her, only a week having passed since our last visit, each stem still accommodated an astonishing quantity of flowers. Offers of long rice turned into offers of white rice, but we were fed nonetheless.
When we returned to Tutu’s home for the first time after she passed, her orchids – our once-dead orchids – were still very much alive. In fact, each orchid was nothing short of perfect: full, vibrant, plump, symmetrical.
We collected the mismatched pots of orchids that for years occupied her back terrace and lined her front pathway and brought them home. One orchid had only lived at Tutu’s for less than a year, while others re-entered our home for the first time in over ten years. You couldn’t tell the difference, though, because every orchid was alive and well – each orchid had been taken care of just the same.
If only Tutu had shared what her secret was for reviving and keeping orchids alive before she died. We did the things you are supposed to do, like we always have: keep the orchids in a temperate environment in direct sunlight and water once-weekly with a single ice-cube. We all believed Tutu must have done something different – she must have had a secret – to keep them alive and healthy.
Looking back now, two years later, Tutu probably never shared with us her secret because she had no secret to share. There was no special fertilizer she used, or song she sang, or any type of sorcery that kept the orchids alive. Tutu just had a knack for it. She could bring our orchids back to life and keep them healthy because it’s how she lived her life; it’s how she cared for everyone who entered her home. In the same way she took special care to make sure each of her guests felt at home and were well-fed – no matter if you were family or if she had just met you, even when she was tired or in pain or had sat in traffic for hours prior – was the way she went about taking care of every living thing.
When we brought the orchids home for the last time, we knew if they turned “junky-looking” they couldn’t just be whisked away and given to Tutu for revival. They would either be whisked away and thrown out, or we would have to revive them ourselves. Our third option was to not let them die.
This realization is what kept us from whisking away an orchid ever again, and we haven’t been back to the orchid nursery since. After all, they do not often need to be replaced. And we also knew these particular orchids were not replaceable. Tutu understood that; now, we do, too: like orchids, no living thing is.
