Fleeting

I’ve never been a fan of the amaryllis. My idea of a flowering plant is a plant that has both flowers which bloom periodically and leafy foliage which it maintains year-round. The only amaryllis plants I’ve seen grow tall stalks, break out in flowers after a couple weeks and then wilt and die.

I found it humorous that the websites I found which talked about the amaryllis claim that it is easy to care for. The directions sounded rather convoluted to me. And the payback seems to be little.

My mom, however, loved the amaryllis and seemed to get one frequently for Christmas. She thrived on the anticipation of watching it grow on a daily basis, waiting for the flowers to bloom. And then it was over.

Granted the flowers are beautiful, but I’m always left asking, what now? But maybe that’s part of the beauty. That it was fleeting. That it would be there one day and gone the next. 

Hard for me to believe that it was only a few weeks ago, when I spent an entire weekend at Mom’s, that her amaryllis went from this...

 

 to this ...

 to this in only a day.

Two days later, it was gone. And so was Mom. 
Maybe that was all part of the plan.