A Poinsettia Named Petunia

I tried a new thing last year.

I kept a poinsettia from Christmas 2017

until Christmas 2018.

Actually, I’m still keeping it.

This was a special Poinsettia.

It was a gift from a dear friend of mine.

I went to visit her at the cancer center in town

where she was getting treatments.

And she brought me the Poinsettia

along with individual gifts for all our family.

That is who she was.

Always thinking of others.

Even in the middle of fighting cancer.

Last summer we lost her.

Everyone who knew her misses her.

And when we remember her,

I think we want to bless others more, 

like she did.

This Poinsettia my friend gave,

kept beautifully blooming for months after Christmas,

but after a while it began dropping leaves

like all other poinsettias I’ve ever had.

I didn’t want to just throw it out.

So I moved it outside, still in its plastic pot,

where it lived all summer,

watered by last year’s abundant rains.

Its stems grew to a woody brown

and new leaves sprouted at the tops.

In November we moved, and the Poinsettia moved with us.

Now I began to think that maybe I should try

to get the leaves to turn to red.

I knew there was some trick of dark and light

that turns the plants from leaf green to Christmas red.

I found out the plant must spend 12 to 14 hours of every day

in complete blackness for six weeks.

This sounded like it might be possible,

so I began stowing the Poinsettia away in the pantry

early every evening and bringing it out

every morning to sit in the windowsill.

Screenshot of my phone alarm.

He began to take on a tinge of pink in the leaves

as well as his own personality.

He developed a name. 

 Petunia.

I don’t know exactly why.

But a poinsettia named Petunia definitely has character.

 This was no showy Christmas Poinsettia.

In fact, most people might not have

recognized him as a poinsettia at all.

He had more of a trunk and spouts of branches

flowering out in bright fireworks at the end.

Beautiful in his own distinct way.

 

Petunia is still growing happily

on our school room windowsill.

I’m planning on moving him outside again for the summer.

And hopefully next Christmas

we’ll enjoy the show of leaves turned to red.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also set eternity in the human heart;

yet no one can fathom what God has done

from beginning to end.”

Ecclesiastes 3:11