Our Little Petunia

About a month back, Ace came home after a trip to Dubai Botanic Gardens with the school with a plant in his hand.  I didn't know what plant it is at all and Ace just said he was told it needs to be in a warm place...

Initially, the plant had two flowers. One that looked like it is dying and another that looked sort of ok.

By the next day though, both flowers died. I am not sure if it is because I did not give it enough water or what. Anyway, I remember that my mother in law always trimmed her plants and so i trimmed away all the dead stuff and the leaves that looked like they are about to die as well.

After that, I took good care of it... watering it three times a day. Making sure it gets some sun everyday. Sometimes watering it with rice water.. cos I hoped it will sort of give it some nutrients:)

And then suddenly, one day, I suddenly noticed that there was this small thingy that looked sort of like a flower. It was there for a long time and nothing else developed and so I forgot about it and went on watering everyday.

One day, while I was watering, I suddenly noticed that there was a FLOWER! It was as if the flower came out overnight.. like magic! I was soooooooooooo excited and quickly took some pictures of it to post on Facebook.

Unopened flower...

Purple when unopened...

And after another one day, a miracle happened! The "thing" bloomed and opened up into a beautiful flower!

Ace was so happy too!:)

Max was all praises for me and said the plant looks revived and healthy now and I was very proud of myself. I never fancied myself having green fingers and I am an absolute dork when it came to plants. It was the first time I took care of a plant till it flowered and I was so so so proud of it!

By then, I noticed there was another small bud that is probably going to bloom into a flower. Day by day I watered it, waiting for it to bloom.... By then, Ace remembered what the flower is called and told me it is a Petunia.. Max asked me to take a photo of it and I said I will do that when the flower is bigger lah...

But it seemed I was never going to have a chance to do that after all....

As I had to sun the flower, I put the pot on a stool and moved the stool around the house.. according to where the sun is so as to catch the sun. One day, Ace was playing with his remote control car and as he doesnt have very good control of it, his car knocked into the stool and knocked my plant over.

I kept quiet because i wanted to see what Ace would do and I went about what i was doing on my computer as usual. Ace tried to stuff the plant back and clear up the mess himself. But he had been on the task for a pretty long time and I decided to finally go take a look.... That is when I noticed that the plant looked a little strange.... sort of out of shaped. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the plant was "injured" the stem broke into two at the point where it is shooting out of the soil!

And I was so upset... the more I thought about it, the sadder I felt.

I was so so sad... I cried and cried very long and very hard.. Max came and put his arm around me as I was crying and Ace happily went about his own business after he told me he was sorry.

I guess I was really sad because I partially felt like this plant has become a part of my very small family in dubai and now it seems to be dead... it felt as if someone close has died... so I was grieving for the death of someone close to me as well. Also, I think the two flowers were symbolic to me... it reminded me of the "shattered dream" I had... (My WBG POV friends will know what i am talking about. I swear I thought I am done with this heal and heal no end topic!)

Ace initially still very happy and go bath and this and tat.. only when I cried, i think he realized that he really fucked up bad. In tears, I exclaimed, "I will never see my second flower bloom.. now they are all gone.. " and I sobbed very hard. Ace was still quiet after he watched my outburst. And then when I finally quiet down, my son walked into the room and started crying aloud because he says he regret doing that to the flower.. "I regret, I am so sorry..."

I explained to him that my crying has nothing to do with him lah. it was really wat the dying of the flower reminded me... But he also admitted later after all the crying that he was also missing Singapore...

Anyway, I am happy to announce tat the leftover  parts attached to the root seems to be surviving well.. I am hopeful that in time to come, it will grow tall with flowers again... If you peer very closely, you can see a very very tiny leave forming at the side....

saying farewell to my flowers before i binned them.. farewell little flower tat never came. Thanks for all the hope you gave me....

Farewell little flower.. thanks for being in my house for whatever short time and brightening my life... thanks for letting me realize that anything is possible if you put your heart into it. I love you...

I posted about this on FB and Max offered to pluck one from the roads to bring it home. A few other friends shared stories of their plants who survived all odds (sickness and falling off the ledge of the building) after lots of love and water.

But i think I just needed to get the emotions out of the system lah. Now when I look at this, I no longer feel that deep sense of loss I did but just a teeny bit of hope tat I will once again see flowers:)

Maybe this is the message the flower is trying to give me. That if I hang on there and be patient and continued to "water" my dreams, I will see flowers again once more:)

Update on 11 Dec 2012:

There are small baby leaves growing out of my plant! woo hoo! My little petunia got chance to grow flowers again! :D Yee Ha!

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