Tuesday, March 31, 2015

She lives on in the plantation

In the process of showing my family around my house, Jaimie, my number one blog reader, inquired about Connie's pineapple plants. I wandered to the end of my pool deck to point them out and show her the pineapple Tom had made in my mom's honor.



I've written before about my mom's plantation. After she died, I finally did what she'd wanted me to do for years--I planted them in my backyard. Okay, well, my husband planted them.

Five of my mother's plants are in the back yard, and one is in a pot in the front yard. For the most part, I leave them be. My mother had me cutting, trimming, watering, etc., but I've chosen to do what I guarantee the big plantation owners do--ignore them and let them do what they do. Occasionally, I look at them, as I did recently when my friend Robin visited. I pointed out the plant in the front yard, and we had a discussion on shade vs. sun because that pineapple plant is HUGE!

Apparently, I need to roam more often through the plantation because Jaimee and I found this...




I admit I became as giddy as a schoolgirl. It takes one pineapple two years to grow, and in the years my mother worked with pineapples, she only produced three of the fruit. I wrote about them here and here and probably a few other places. The fact that we had a pineapple growing less than a year after her death? It had to be a sign. Hope? Peace? Something!


Then, I turned to plant #2 and OMG! it too had a pineapple! Two pineapples!


But wait! As I turned--HOLY PINEAPPLE--there sprung another from a third plant. My plantation inherited from my mother had THREE fruits on three different plants--plants she'd nursed from the tops she cut off fresh fruit purchased in the grocery store. Plants she continued to baby even from a wheelchair. I got a bit weepy.

Then, I apologized to her for not bringing them home when she'd begged me to because, obviously, these babies needed my soil!

I doubt they will be ripe and ready for the anniversary of her death next month, but you can bet I will toast her dearly with a pina colada when they are--because what else do you do with pineapple?

No comments:

Post a Comment