Hoya blooms and a 10-year tribute

I remember so much about that weekend, but forgot many details I couldn’t absorb. Time warps around traumatic events like that, making them feel both like they happened yesterday and decades ago all at once.

Sudden loss can uniquely freeze the entire world at a moment’s notice. It turns our environments and surroundings into untouched still frames, leaving life precisely as it was moments ago, without the person who once occupied the space.

Toothbrushes sit on the counter where they were last used, dirty dishes pile in the sink, and piles of mail scatter the countertops. For us, we found a plant clipping propagating in a small coffee cup on the kitchen counter, awaiting a new home as it grew new roots and life.

I wish I had insight into what she was doing then, why she propagated the clipping, what she was thinking, and how she felt. I don’t recall her being a big plant person, but maybe there were things I never got to love and know deeply about her. Either way, I can only assume that never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that she’d leave behind the start of a plant that we’ve nourished, grown, and watched flourish over the years—one that has changed my life and story forever.

Ten years ago, I wasn’t much of a plant person either. Thankfully, my mom knew a thing or two, so we took the clipping home with us and later welcomed it into a new soil-filled home. We later learned it’s a Hoya carnosa, a wax plant, or a porcelain flower.

It was one of my first real plants, aside from the few I picked up here and there at the local grocery store and one I cherished deeply. When I moved, it came with me. I always found the perfect spot for it in every apartment I lived in, watered it, nourished it, ensured it had enough sunlight, and even spoke to it on the hard days, wishing it would whisper back and offer much-needed advice.

I clung to the plant clippings with a tight grip—a symbol of her soul continuing to breathe and grow alongside me as I grappled with the newfound hole her physical presence left behind.

My beloved plant lived within the walls of my home when I graduated college, accepted my first post-college job offer, got engaged, moved to an apartment in the city for the first time, got married, brought home my first cat child, became a homeowner, brought home my second cat child, and made significant career changes.

It has been with me through so many big, defining moments that I wish she could have been here for.

Over the last decade, I’ve cut my clippings and propagated the Hoya to spread it across my home, share it with loved ones, and bless friends' homes.

After breathing life into the Hoya carnosa for nine years, it bloomed for the first time last spring, a humbling reminder that all good things in life require time, consistency, and daily care.

My beautiful Hoya carnosa currently has the most blooms I’ve ever seen. The flowers bloom in small clusters, and there are currently 10 of them. What are the odds?

Grappling with unexpected life events, especially loss, is undoubtedly one of the most challenging parts of being human. Everything feels heavy, scary, exhausting, and unbearable when your life flips upside down in the blink of an eye. And yet, these moments can offer us a piece of someone they might not have left behind otherwise, like a small plant clipping on the kitchen counter that became a life-changing story.

Thank you for the Hoya, Grandma.

Time Intentional 🕰️ Reader Love 💞

• Shelley D. responded to last week’s issue about meaning-making and shared an approach she learned from her child’s therapist that I loved: the two hands approach. Shelley explained, “Whenever something is disappointing, we can put one hand out and share the disappointment, and then put the other hand out and share the silver lining.” What a beautiful way to remember that these feelings can coexist.

I’m Alyssa Towns, a freelance writer, and this is Time Intentional, a newsletter exploring what it means to spend our limited (and precious) time intentionally. Only you can decide how to spend your time in a way that feels intentional!

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