Reminders of Life and Death

The tale of my two cyclamen plants continues and is a bit mysterious. I wrote about them earlier this year, telling how they were both gifts from women friends who later had cancer. One survived; the other didn’t.

Soon after I took the above picture in February, I decided the plants were root-bound and found bigger pots to put them in. They suddenly had lots of green, healthy leaves, but only an occasional bloom.

The white one, given to me by someone who survived breast cancer, continued to thrive even without blooms.

The pink one, given to me by my elderly friend Florence who had a malignant brain tumor and died last summer, started to shrivel up and died just a year after Florence’s death.

Not that I have a green thumb, but I did treat them equally well. I watered them and occasionally fertilized them. What would cause one plant to live while the other just wasted away?

I’m wondering if I found a shallower pot if the white one would put its energy into blooms once again instead of growing roots?

I’ll have to find other reminders of little Florence now that the pink cyclamen is no longer.