Environment

The plant I never needed, until I did.

I have this plant.  Well maybe had is a better word for it.  I got it from my mother- in- law, healthy, in perfect condition, straight from her garden to mine.  It was a beautiful plant.

It sat for a few days, unplanted, as I needed to weed and clear out my garden, which I had left untouched since we moved in 7 months ago.  Finally, I basically cleaned out the garden, enough to see the beauty that lie underneath the weeds, and planted the gift from my mother-in-law.

At the time I planted it, there was a kitten being raised under a huge bush in front of which I had planted the gift.  The first day I took my dog for a walk after planting, she ran over to try to find the kitten, and knocked the plant out from its new home.  After the walk, I replanted it.

The next day, the scene repeated itself.  And the next, and the next, until I finally got sick of replanting each time anew, and just left it?promising I would plant it the next day.  The next day came and I didn't replant it?three weeks passed and I still hadn't gotten around to replanting it.  By then it was basically dead.

Two days ago, my husband and I went to the beach.  He refused to put on sunscreen, and effectively got burned.  A few hours after arriving home, his back was hot as an oven, and I decided to go to the garden, which is shared with our next door neighbor (she doesn't really work on it either), to see if we had any Aloe to soothe my husband's back.  My neighbor was outside and I asked her if we had any Aloe in the garden.

"Wasn't that the plant that died?" She asked, less of a question, than a statement.  It was.

By giving up on it, and getting impatient with trying, I had let the one thing that could have soothed my husband, simply "go away".

Isn't that exactly what we are doing to our Earth?  One day, when we finally realize that we need it, a gift that had been given to us to care for, it may no longer be there to help us.