My Coach Purse

 “If you believe that your thoughts originate inside your brain, do you also believe that television shows are made inside your television set?”

― Warren Ellis 

I recently bought a Coach purse at a local thrift store, Recycle Circus. I love it. It’s pink and too small for all my stuff. But, it’s pretty and it’s Coach. I bought it after seeing that someone I follow on Instagram is constantly finding Coach bags at thrift stores. 

This is how it happened…

When visiting Recycle Circus, I spotted the pink and brown bag and thought it was cute. I knew it was Coach and had recently seen several videos about finding Coach bags at thrift stores. But, this one was $25 which I thought was a bit much. So, I left the store and went happily on my way. 

With Coach bags fresh on my mind, I went to Dillard’s with my husband, Bobby, to find a shirt and tie for him to wear to our son’s wedding. While taking a detour to the women’s clothes, we passed the purses. Lo and behold there was a Coach display! So, I wandered in and picked up a small, leather bag. It was almost $300! A quick examination of the rest of the display showed me that the small bag was the cheapest of the lot. 

Suddenly, the Recycle Circus Coach purse didn’t seem so out of my price range.

The next weekend, I returned to Recycle Circus to find the Coach bag still hanging by its leather and gold strap. I grabbed it, carried it around the store for a few minutes, then took it to the register to pay. It’s all mine now. 

Until recently, I didn’t even know that I should want a Coach bag. I never even thought about Coach bags. The few I had seen were drab and brown with the Coach logo all over them. Not really my style. Plus, they were super expensive. Definitely not my style. 

It’s all the fault of Amber Yackzan. She makes these really cute videos about “thrifting in NYC” and cutting her own hair. While I’m not about to cut my curly hair myself, Amber reminded me that I really love and appreciate thrift stores. 

Since watching her videos I’ve bought the adorable Coach purse, a pair of sneakers that look like they’re made of lace, and a maroon jacket with embroidered flowers on it. There was a time when almost every day I wore at least one thrifted item. I’m getting back to that now. Today, for instance, I’m wearing a blue shirt, recently bought at my local America’s Thrift Stores. It fits great and goes with almost everything. A very good find. 

I’m embarrassingly susceptible to influencers. I asked for and got a Warmie for my birthday thanks to Jessica_Rae and her videos about Christmas gifts. I started using ChatGPT like a madwoman after watching upgradingkatie and her life transformation. And, I’m doing stretches in my pjs in the morning because of thepeachiespoon. 

None of these things are bad. They may actually have improved my life. But, I never would have thought of them on my own. Or, if I did think of them, I wouldn’t have implemented them or known how to get started. 

So, now we come to the point, social media, good or bad? But, maybe it’s really not so cut and dried. Smart people have been saying this forever. It’s the use of social media that can be hauntingly destructive. But, social media itself isn’t so horrible. 

Unless it makes you buy stuff you didn’t know you wanted. Then, maybe…

Celebrating Lent

“O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen.” —Henri Nouwen

Google says that Lent is a “solemn Christian religious observance in the liturgical year in preparation for Easter. It echoes the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, before beginning his public ministry.”

Somewhere along the way, people in the church decided that since Jesus fasted before his death and resurrection, we should too. Then, the ideal was whittled down until the essence that remained was fasting not from all food all the time, but fasting from meat on Fridays which would allow us to give our meat money to the starving. Devout Catholics still observe this tradition today. 

However, I’ve seen that Fridays in the Catholic-ly populated midwest have become something of a party. Lenten Fridays in Nebraska and Iowa are a time where people gather in smokey community centers to swim through a haze of grease, and sit together at paper covered tables eating fish with slaw and hushpuppies. I’ve been there and it’s wonderful and delicious. But it’s a bit of a departure from Google’s definition that “Lent is solemn.” 

Many Protestant believers also celebrate Lent, but not necessarily by giving up meat on Fridays. I’ve had friends give up social media, coffee, or TV. It’s all in an effort to focus more on how we should be living in light of Jesus’s sacrifice. 

When I occasionally helped at the Charlotte Mason school in Birmingham, AL, they celebrated the Christian year in their chapel services. The students all wore different capes for different parts of the year. The ones they wore for Lent were made of burlap. They were brown and drab and scratchy. But after Lent they got to turn the uncomfortable capes in for one made of purple velvet signifying the royalty of Jesus. It was beautiful and soft. A definite upgrade and it demonstrated in a way the students could truly understand that something wonderful had happened.  

One year for Lent, I listened to a specific Christian song every day - Keep Making Me by Sidewalk Prophets. In 2026, for every day between Palm Sunday and Easter I watched an episode of The Chosen. I liked doing both of those things. They made me think and that made me feel closer to Jesus and the trials he went through. It made Lent and my faith more of a practice, more of an almost tangible part of my life. Perhaps I’m not just adding something into my life, maybe I’m giving up what I would normally listen to or watch in exchange for something that will bring me closer to God.

I don’t seem to be as good at giving something up for 40 days. In college, a friend of mine suffered through the jitters and headaches of going without caffeine for Lent. I was with her on Easter Monday when she sat on the floor of her dorm room with a huge Coke. I think she had jitters and a headache after that, too. My sister has given up secular music and styrofoam takeout containers. She says giving up something for Lent shouldn’t look like you’re trying to lose weight, like giving up chocolate or fried food. 

Another friend of mine who grew up Catholic asked her children to give up sugar for the week leading up to Easter. The sugar rush they got from the candy in their Easter baskets must have been real and intense. 

While I think it’s amazing to even contemplate giving something up (or adding something in) as a spiritual practice during Lent, what happens after that? After the 40 days, what then? It seems there should be another spiritual discipline you employ, kind of like a maintenance phase. 

But, maybe life is a maintenance phase. When I just looked up “what is a maintenance phase” Google told me that a maintenance phase is when people use several weeks after a diet or weight loss to let their bodies adjust to a new norm. “(A maintenance phase) allow(s) the body to recover physically and mentally before potentially resuming weight loss or focusing on other goals.”

Eastertide, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time, the next three parts of the Christian year, may fall right in line with Google’s wisdom. After the excitement of Jesus’ resurrection and the potential stress of giving up complaining or Chick Fil A, it might be time for a little recovery. It might also be time to rest before focusing on another area of life that needs attention.

So maybe instead of thinking how sad and drab it is to be in the season of “Ordinary Time” I’ll reframe that to be a season of slowing down and reflection. A time not to test myself, but to let myself recover from the strain of adding or taking out something hard and taxing. 

So, what about you? How do you observe Lent? I’d love to know. 

“Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault- finding or finger-pointing but because he wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things he now has in store.”

― N.T. Wright 

Enough

There’s a strange and disturbing trend flooding our youth group. It’s not particularly cutting edge or original. But, it’s here and must be dealt with. It’s the concept of being “enough.” 

Several years ago I chose the word “enough” as my word of the year. That might have been a strange and disturbing trend too, but I enjoyed it - having something to focus on and set my course by. I had similar thoughts to what the youth group is experiencing  - I was worried that I wasn’t “enough.” Enough of what I’m not sure. 

Strong enough, pure enough, dedicated enough. I don’t know what my problem was. But, I was pretty sure I didn’t measure up to whatever it was God had in mind for me. Eventually, though, I felt like God was telling me it was ok. I didn’t need to be enough. I was already enough. He was delighted with me just as I was. 

But, I didn’t believe Him. I persisted in my pleas for God to change me into whatever better version of Amy He thought I should be. And soon instead of a still small voice reminding me that He was enough and I didn’t have to be, I started to hear a stronger, firmer voice telling me, “Enough!” As in, cut it out. Stop it. Get over it. Enough!

I’m afraid our students need to hear that reprimand now. I’m afraid they need to have God or someone tell them they’re not enough. They never will be. What would they need Jesus and His saving grace for if they were enough? But, enough already. It’s cool. You’re cool. You just need to trust. 

It’s like in To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. At the end Lara Jean and Peter have an honest discussion, finally. Peter tells Lara Jean that he loves her after Lara Jean confesses that she likes him, and not in a fake way. At that point Lara Jean asks what they put in a contract for a real relationship. And, Peter replies, “Nothing. You gotta trust.”

God’s like that. He’s not up in Heaven thinking of all the random and specific things you need to stop doing or start doing in order to be in an acceptable relationship with Him, or to be an acceptable version of yourself. “Don’t talk bad about your friends.” “Read your Bible for 45 minutes every morning and night even if you’re so tired you’re definitely going to fall asleep.” “Go to church every time the doors open.” 

God’s not like that. Sure there are things that will make Him proud of you if you stop doing them. But, He’s not going to leave you if you don’t. He’s sticking around. He loves you! And, you don’t have to worry about being enough because He is enough. And, He’s got this. 

You just gotta trust.

Nine Days in Austria

I’ve been having a hard time putting our trip to Austria into words. It happened two years ago and I’m still struggling over it. The trip was long anticipated, delightful, and fulfilling. When we first got home, I thought, like everyone these days, “I should post pictures of our trip!” But, though I wanted to, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Those pictures weren’t enough. There were stories and feelings and backstories and sweet family memories that should be shared too. But, I didn’t really want to share. I wanted to keep them all to myself. 

Here’s why: Bobby and I spent two amazing years in Austria working with refugees. It was a defining point of our lives. We would forever be the couple who had been missionaries, however briefly. Those years weren’t perfect, but to our friends and family in Alabama, they sounded big and exotic. I liked that. 

So, for 25 years, literally, we had been wanting to return to Austria - to a place we loved, a place that took a lot out of us, a place that molded us into the couple we became. And, we had wanted to share all of that with our kids. But, the time was never quite right. Either we had time but no money, or we had money but no time. Or, maybe our kids didn’t have time. But, the summer of 2023 was it. Allen graduated from the University of Nebraska Omaha three days before we hopped a plane and flew to Vienna. Davis would graduate from the University of North Alabama two months after we returned. It was the perfect time. 

One of the highlights for me was visiting the ministry center, The Oasis, where we used to work and seeing my kids play chess and sort clothes there, activities we used to do weekly. Our first night at the coffee bar on this trip, I played UNO with two young men from Syria. I doubt either of them was 20 years old. My mom instincts started kicking in and I found myself wanting to help and protect them, telling them to make sure to come back to the clothing room, asking if they wanted extra cookies, extra anything I could give them. But, before the night was over they left and I had to let go. It was so unsettling watching them, younger than my own boys, walking alone into the night, so far from home. Where were their moms, their families? Were they worrying at that very moment how their sons were?

I loved sitting in the courtyard at our old home, bathed in bright sunshine, Albrechtgasse 27, with our former landlady, her daughter, and our dear friend, Miriam, who lives there now. Frau Schurz kept looking at my grown up boys, smiling and saying, “die schoene grosse Buben” which means, basically, the big, beautiful boys. She was so thrilled to finally meet them after watching them grow up in our Christmas cards. Frau Schurz told us that she had been at her doctor’s office that morning and as she left she excitedly told the receptionist she was in a hurry, she was meeting her American friends. The young receptionist asked who these American friends were. Frau Schurz said it was Amy and Bobby who used to live in her backyard. The young lady said, “I know Amy and Bobby!” She had been a young Bosnian refugee at one of our kids clubs. What a very small world. 

We also had Sunday lunch in the cozy apartment of another friend, Carol, catching up and helping make the most delicious frosting of sour cream and melted chocolate chips for the cake she baked for dessert. After lunch we took a walk through the nearby vineyards.

The whole trip was surreal and sublime. The boys loved walking to the train station and being able to get anywhere they wanted without a car. We loved showing them the town we used to live in and watching them figure out how to communicate without knowing much German. It was wonderful. 

When we got back to Alabama, and I was trying to figure out how to put all this into words, I had a time of sorrow and frustration. “We didn’t DO anything while we were there. Why didn’t we plan more stuff and DO more?” We had planned the trip to be low-key and calm. We wanted uninterrupted time to rest and wander and visit. But, upon reflection I got scared that the trip hadn’t had the sweet, unhurried feel I had dreamed of. But, instead it was too boring and too slow for 24 year old boys. 

Weeks later when I re-read the journal I kept in my Bella Grace magazine (because I forgot to pack my actual journal) I realized that we did an awful lot and covered an amazing amount of ground. We spent two days in Vienna where we rode the huge Wiener Riesenrad or Vienna Ferris Wheel (you can see it in the movie “The Third Man”) while a polka band played below, music wafting into the open window of our car. We also spent one day in Bratislava, Slovakia. We didn’t have to exchange money or present our passports at the border like in pre-EU days. It was convenient but oddly unsatisfying.

We toured churches and palaces. We helped our old team serve refugees. We visited with long-time, beloved friends. We drove through the countryside to a tiny hamlet with a children’s program for refugees and listened to a brook as it meandered over rocks and between overhanging trees. 

We stayed in a small apartment like an Austrian would live in, eating pizza and Schnitzel and Doner kebabs bought just outside train stops. We soaked in the mystery and majesty of a place that was first mentioned in writing in AD 869, over a millenia ago. We bought chocolate and magnets and I bought an adorable purple purse the color of a Milka candy bar wrapper. People still ask me regularly where I got it.  

But mostly I learned some stuff about my family. Davis doesn’t like to walk by places. He wants to go in and tour things and see stuff up close. You may think he’s not paying attention, but he’s probably looking up stories or facts about where you’re going on his phone and will soon tell you all about it. 

Allen likes to push himself and he’s basically up for anything. He climbed by himself up to the ruins of a fort and brought back beautiful pictures. At one point we arrived home late after a tiring day, but Bobby and Allen wanted to find a place to have a beer. They wandered out into the night and eventually found Zum Reichsapfel.  Bobby remembers going there back in 1997 with some of the other missionaries we worked with back then. Bobby and Allen came back an hour later very pleased with themselves for being adventurous. 

Bobby is going to be tense on the way, he wants to find the best way to get to our destination. But once we get there he’s going to rally and be the pied piper we’re all going to follow.

Now, I feel like we didn’t just have a trip to Austria, we didn’t just visit friends there. We didn’t experience the laziness of a vacation. We LIVED in Baden for nine days. Oh, how I wish it could have been longer. Maybe next time.

"Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times."

-Asian Proverb

  

Befriended

The floor was mopped, the tea was made, cookies were arranged on a platter and orange, plastic chairs curved in a circle.  Everything was ready.  Soon, people would show up.  

While my husband, Bobby, and I were missionaries in Austria from 1995 to 1997, this was our normal Friday night thing. Bible study. Those invited were the refugees we spent our time visiting and praying for. These gatherings began with singing, moved on to a Bible lesson, and ended with food. 

Bobby dreaded Friday nights, but not because of the Bible studies. He loved those. He just knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours after drinking even one cup of hot, black tea and I would want him to stay awake with me and talk. 

Bobby and our teammate, Miriam, left me to finish setting up while they drove to a nearby refugee pension to collect our regular attenders. Miriam could fit four people in her tiny, powder blue Fiat Panda and we could fit that many in our Honda Kombi wagon. 

Two people I hoped to see that night were Ramin and Leila. Their children, Vahid and Ashti, though they were quite young, would undoubtedly come too.

Ramin and Leila were new friends of ours, recently arrived from Iran. They weren’t Believers in Jesus. But, like many refugees we befriended, they would sit through just about anything for the chance at a night out. Our Friday night studies delivered a chance for these men and women to feel valuable. For a few hours, they were everyday people, not one of a herd, shuffled to meals and lawyer appointments and clothing rooms, one of the masses. On Friday nights they were human again, part of a small group, talked with, listened to and served. 

Ramin and Leila were Muslim, and openly so. They didn’t give the impression of being particularly religious and they weren’t planning on converting to Christianity, unless it made their asylum chances better. If you’ve been persecuted at home because of religious reasons, you’re more likely to make your case for shelter in another country. But you must prove it.

Ramin and Leila were a little older than Bobby and me and already had kids. Ramin was tall and imposing with thick, curly hair. He rarely smiled and spoke near perfect English. His wife, Leila, was petite, quiet and anxious. She had expected their journey to be much easier, much quicker. She was surprised to find herself living in a room with her husband and children for months on end. They had no money and few possessions. 

Ramin and Leila’s children were tiny, beautiful people. Their daughter, Ashti, had shiny, straight, dark hair.  Their son, Vahid, had curly black hair like his dad’s. The kids were rambunctious and happy, not old enough to truly understand what was going on. They were on an adventure, meeting strange and interesting people. Too young for school, they were spared the confusion and frustration of being thrust into a room all day, away from their parents, not understanding a word of what was happening. 

One day, I had Leila over for lunch along with her children.  We ate on my porch and walked around in slippers. The children played on the stairs leading to our loft bedroom.  I remember Leila almost falling, slipping on the wood floor in her borrowed slippers and the children giggling a lot.  I don’t remember what we ate or what we talked about. But I remember the look on her face when she walked into our modest, but homey house, shock and joy and jealousy and relief. It was so much smaller than where she had lived in Iran she said, and so much bigger than the room she presently occupied.

Leila told wistful stories about her house back in Iran; the smoky brown, glass cups she drank tea from, the patio on the roof of the home she shared with Ramin’s parents, the lavish clothes she wore to parties. I wondered once why she had left. The stories she told made Iran sound exotic, elaborate and opulent. Asking her to explain, Leila just shook her head and clicked her tongue. “There’s no future there,” she said. Life was hard in Iran and getting worse.

Leila's sister and her family traveled to Austria with Ramin and Leila. They lived next door to each other in the pension. Ramin and Leila, along with Leila’s sister and her family, had hopes of going to America or Canada. They knew people who had gone before them and would help them when they arrived. In Austria they didn’t know anyone. 

At one point Leila’s sister and her family decided to leave Austria. They had waited long enough and made the risky move of forging ahead, uninvited, to another country. Ramin and Leila chose to stay put. I don’t know if fear or common sense or a lack of money caused them to say goodbye. But I know parting was terribly hard on those sisters. And I don’t know where Leila’s sister and her family ended up.

Ramin didn’t ask many questions or talk much during those Friday night Bible studies. But he would translate for his wife and any other Farsi speakers. He once said, "We should pray to God. We pray to Mohammed, and he doesn't help us." I wasn't entirely sure God was going to help them in the way Ramin wanted. But I was excited he might give it a try.

As far as I know Ramin and Leila are still living in Austria. We believe they received asylum, permission to live there permanently. 

We tried to introduce Ramin and Leila to the One who could give them a future and a hope. Though we didn’t see them make a decision to follow Christ, we heard they did just after we left. 

I hope and pray it’s true. 

“Refugees didn’t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they’d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day.”

Nadia Hashimi

Sequins, Hair Spray, and Boots

Oh shoot! I hadn’t thought this part through. 

There I was, dancing away, in downtown Lanett. The Lanett High School Golden Panther Marching Band was nearing the end of a rousing number during a community pep rally, the crowd was cheering, and we, the LHS Majorette line, were about to finish our dance with a fun move designed for the football field. We were each going to kick our right leg then swing it to the left as we bent down to the ground, rolled onto our stomachs, and completed the move with a perky head pop and our left toes pointed to the sky. 

It was a cute move, but we were not on a grass football field. We were on the open road. Granted the road was closed off, but the asphalt was kind of hot in Alabama even in October. The road that carried people to and from jobs and school each day was unmentionably dirty and gross, and we were about to lie on it. 

The first girl on the end of the majorette line, DeAnna, realized what was about to happen as she kicked her leg, then she sank to the road in the slowest possible motion, hoping, as I was, that we’d find some way out of this without having to belly flop onto the blacktop. The next girl in line dropped to the ground without hesitation, so I followed suit. And that’s how I ended up lying face down on the street in downtown Lanett. 

This was one of the highlights of my high school years. Not lying on the street between the post office and the First Christian Church but being a high school majorette. I loved to dance and twirl my baton. I loved putting on my sequin uniform and knee-high boots. 

I loved curling my hair with hot rollers then shellacking it with Aqua Net Super Extra Hold hair spray. I loved the make-up and the sparkle. I loved dancing and catching my baton at the exact moment as my fellow majorettes. The lights. The noise of the crowd. The drums beating out the tempo for our opening number. 

It was the chance to be someone else and, during the 8 minutes our halftime show lasted, it was magical. 

I know many people who were high school majorettes. We laugh about the boots, the hairspray, and whether we still have our batons. Most of us do. I’ve lived in fourteen homes and except for a two-year stint in Austria, those batons have been my most faithful companion. They’re tucked safely away in a black and white carrying case, my name spelled out in orange tape on the cover. 

I was good at being a majorette. I could probably count the number of times I’ve said that in my life, “I was good.” But I was. I lived for Friday nights in the fall. 

I wish things we do as adults garnered the same type of celebration as catching a really high baton toss. When I set up appointments for my boss, he doesn’t applaud and cheer. When I manage to plan and cook a week’s worth of dinners, my family members don’t jump to their feet and high five each other. It’s just not the same. 

So, maybe it’s not going feel the same as marching off the field after an amazing halftime performance, comparing how many times I “dropped” with my fellow majorettes. But how can I carry over some part of that to my adult life? How can I first acknowledge and then celebrate the things I work hard for and do well? How can I celebrate those things I see in others?

I have a tear off notepad on my desk at work with the words “Awesome Citation” across the top. Under the heading it says, “You’ve been pretty awesome lately, completely outdoing yourself and outshining everyone else. It hasn’t gone unnoticed. Nice work.” Under that you can choose from a list of things to recognize someone for – blatant likeability, excessive good hair days, popularity with children, style for days. Then, at the bottom, there are a couple of lines for you to fill in. 

It's cute. You can get one here and I suggest you do. I’ve enjoyed filling these out and giving them to co-workers at my school. It means something when someone else takes a minute to affirm who you are and how you’re doing. I’ve spotted Awesome Citations in a couple of people’s classrooms, tacked to a bulletin board or taped to a desk. 

But everything we do isn’t going to be applauded. No one is going to be excited about me cleaning the bathroom. I’m not going to get a high five for reminding my boss that he has a meeting. 

Maybe there won’t ever be the public celebration and communal victory in everyday life that we experience at sporting events. And maybe that’s okay. I don’t know if I could live through that much excitement day in and day out. But it would be nice to capture some of that Friday night magic, some of that joy and passion and celebration of a job well done. 

My friends and I were discussing this very subject in a text thread this week. One of us found an old video of The Golden Panther Marching Band. It’s a video that resurfaces on Facebook occasionally. Our formations on the football field were crisp and precise. The music was peppy, loud, and beautiful. In this old video you can’t tell much about the majorettes, but we were there, doing our thing, laying on the grass at the end of the second number. It never fails to choke me up and make me wish I could be there again. 

Even though we all miss band and bus trips and practice, we all long for that same affirmation. I may not show up at my friend’s house on vacuuming day to cheer her on, but I can recognize and make sure to tell her what an amazing, strong mother she is. I can write another friend a letter telling her how proud I am of how she’s embraced her new role as “Mimi.” And I can tell myself that I’m doing a good job loving my husband and my mom and my job even when it feels overwhelming and like I’m not doing much. 

I guess I’ll have to come to terms with the fact that my adult accomplishments just aren’t going to be celebrated in the same way they were in high school. But that doesn’t mean I sometimes don’t still long to pull those boots out of the storage chest at my mom’s house or that I don’t twirl my batons just for the sheer pleasure of it. I just need to get better at affirming other people. And I really need to get better at affirming myself. 

And maybe that will be enough. 

You Seem a Decent Fellow, I Hate to Kill You

It’s just a plant. On some level I know that. But, on another level, it’s much more. It’s a tree actually; a Dracaena Lemon Lime. A dear friend sent this little tree to my family about four years ago when my grandmother passed away. It was a beautiful gesture, and I am still touched by her thoughtfulness.

But, what’s utterly amazing is that somehow, I’ve kept this plant alive. It’s in the corner of my dining room by a window. It soaks up the afternoon sun and gets watered when I think about it. I rotate the tree when I water it, hoping to keep it from getting too much sun on one side, just like when you’re sunbathing on the beach.

Thriving in my dark office

I don’t have a good track record with keeping plants alive. I killed a succulent that lived for months on my sunny kitchen table. The Confederate Roses (you’re probably supposed to call them something else now) I planted in my backyard got waterlogged and never bloomed. And, a lovely Tobacco Plant died over Christmas break when I decided it would be fine to leave it for two weeks on a pedestal beside my office at school.

So, it wasn’t a huge surprise when, in the last year or so, the Dracaena Lemon Lime hasn’t looked its best. I tried watering it less, cutting off brown parts of its leaves, even ignoring it (my preferred plant parenting strategy). Nothing worked. This Dracaena Lemon Lime is dead.

I thought it was dead once before. I was sad and tried to overlook the fact that it had lost some leaves and the ones that were left were looking either peaky or crispy and brown. But, amazingly, after a few weeks, a new leaf or two sprouted, light green and perky from the top of the little tree. It rebounded with a bit of determination and gusto. Short-lived but even so.

It’s not going to happen this time. I should come to terms with it and let it go. Somehow, I can’t bring myself to throw it away. It seems cruel and unnecessary, like I’m giving up on my grandmother and life and hope.

Yes, I realize that sounds dramatic. I also realize it’s just a plant.

I had a similar situation after our last move. Eighteen years earlier, my father passed away and I was gifted a beautiful Peace Lily. It lived through moves from Texas to Nebraska and from Nebraska to Pennsylvania, then from Pennsylvania to Alabama. I think Jesus knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it if this particular plant died. I did my usual ignoring thing, hoping to find a place where the Peace Lily happened to thrive. And, it worked, for a while. Years actually. But, one day I noticed that the Peace Lily only had a leaf or two. Then, one of the leaves got a brown spot that started creeping its way toward the roots.

I tried to water it a little more, then I tried to water it a little less. Nothing slowed the deadly progression. I even called my mom, my plant guru, and she said something really helpful like, “Oh Amy, just stick your finger in the dirt to see if it feels dry.” I did that, but either my finger doesn’t detect dryness or the plant never looked like it needed a drink.

A bold gift from a friend

Then, one day, the Peace Lily was gone. All that was left was a brown stick coming out of the soil. Eventually, even that disappeared. Unable to throw the Peace Lily away, I moved the pot to the top of the freezer in my laundry room. I saw it regularly, but rarely thought about it. The Peace Lily didn’t get watered or talked to. I went on about my life, finding a new job, taking care of the Dracaena Lemon Lime, mourning my grandmother.

Then one day I decided to clean off the top of the freezer and lo and behold, there was a tender, green leaf coming out of the dead Peace Lily. There was much rejoicing as I decided to start caring for the plant again. But all too soon, the Peace Lily gave up the ghost and I found the strength to throw it in the trash can just outside the laundry room window.

Funny, isn’t it, how something as insignificant as a plant can make or break you. It’s not like I’m throwing away my dad or all my memories of him. I’m not tossing the butterfly pin that belonged to my grandmother or her kitchen table.

But, letting go of these plants kind of feels like I’m letting go of something much more precious, something much more tender than a new leaf, much more beautiful than a healthy, lush plant in the corner of my dining room.

And why do people give you plants when a loved one dies anyway? How did that tradition begin? You’re at your most vulnerable and tired and preoccupied. You probably aren’t taking great care of yourself, so how can you be expected to take care of a fragile plant as well? Maybe that’s the point.

A plant needs you. It needs you to crawl out of the recliner and give it water. It needs you to dust off the coffee table to make space for something beautiful. And, maybe it’s more important to be needed in the midst of your grief than it is to sleep a bit more or watch another movie.

Missing people makes you do some silly things, like hanging onto chairs that are broken because they were hers or picking up the phone to call someone who isn’t there when you want to cook a slab of ribs. But I know what my grandmom and my dad would say about me keeping these plants. They’d think I was crazy and they’d say, “Throw that old, ugly plant away, Amy. It isn’t doing anything for you.”

I should listen to them and honor that thought. But this time, I don’t really have the strength to toss the Dracaena Lemon Lime. Not yet. Maybe I’ll just move it to the top of the freezer in my laundry room and hope for the best.