Finally, A Second Bloom

2011

2014

One day after school, Kyle, in the third grade at the time, came home excited beyond belief.  He dumped his backpack in the door and rushed to find me in the kitchen.

"Mom!" he exclaimed, "I have a surprise for you!"  And he reached in his pocket and pulled out a napkin, carefully folded into a tiny square.

With a little trepidation, I went to unfold it to see what was inside.  No telling what kind of "treasure" an eight-year old boy could fold up in a napkin!

Before I could get it open or even ask what it was, he cautioned, "Be careful!  It's seeds!  And they will grow into the most beautiful flower you have ever seen!"

Sure enough, three tiny, flat seeds, so light that they would blow away at the slightest whisper, were folded up inside that napkin and carried home in Kyle's pocket.

He continued, "Mrs. Lenihan said that if we put them in some dirt in a pot that in about 5 years, you will have the most beautiful flower ever!  I told her how much you love flowers, and so she gave me some seeds. Aren't you so happy?"  He smiled to break my heart, and I hugged him and said, "Thank you so much for thinking of me, Kyle!  I'm sure these will be beautiful one day."

We found a pot in the garage, filled it with some potting soil, and placed the seeds down in the dirt, where they disappeared almost immediately.  A sprinkling of water, placement in the kitchen window, and we were through.

Kyle checked the pot every day for about a week, waiting for the seeds to sprout.  Weeks turned into months.  I watered the dirt every so often, but couldn't bear to throw it out because of how excited Kyle had been when he came home that afternoon.  After a few months, I found a metal flower pick to stick down in the dirt, and I was really glad that we had picked a Louisville Stoneware pot to plant the seeds in so at least the pot was pretty.

Third grade turned to fourth, and just when I was about ready to toss the whole thing, I noticed a little nub of green beginning to poke up through the dirt.  Kyle was thrilled, and I was intrigued.  Never had I known seeds to take a year to germinate.

We watched as they grew overnight.  One inch, two, three.  Pretty soon, we had about 18 inches of stalk-like leaves, similar to a tulip leaf, but no stem for a flower.  The leaves stayed green for a couple of weeks and then began to die back.  Yellowing at the tips and then down the whole plant until it was limp and brown.  I pulled them off, and we waited to see what would happen next.

Nothing.

Nothing happened for several more months.  Then another shoot of leaves came up and grew and grew and grew, but still, no flowers.

Months turned into years.  The teacher who gave Kyle the seeds retired and moved away.  Kyle graduated from grade school and headed off to St. X.  The cycle of the plant kept up until finally, one day about seven years after we planted those three seeds, we noticed something different.  Coming up out of the leaves was a stalk.  It looked to have a bud on it.  We watched and waited.  A few days later, there it was, this beautiful amaryllis-type flower.  We had no idea what we had grown, but it WAS beautiful!  I took a picture of Kyle with it.  He was 15 and a freshman in high school.

The flower lasted about a week and then died.  I thought he had told me that it only bloomed once, so I was about to toss it once again.  But once again, he stopped me.  "No," he said, "it will bloom again.  It just takes awhile."  So I put it back on my window sill and kept watering.

About a week ago, after three more years of leaf cycles, I noticed another stalk popping up.  Two days ago, the flower opened up, and for the second time in TEN YEARS, we have more blooms, and ironically, tomorrow is his last day of high school.

I have discovered that it is an amaryllis plant, grown from seed, and it took so long to bloom because the seeds were forming a bulb under the soil.  Hopefully as the plant matures, it won't wait so long between blooms because it IS one of the most beautiful flowers I've seen, mostly because every time I look at it, I see those eager eyes, a gap-toothed smile, and three tiny seeds folded up in a napkin.