December 2024
This time last year, I gave someone I loved a Christmas cactus and a notebook.
He was going to the hospital. He was going to get clean. He was going to be okay.
I gave him the notebook to write in while he was there. To write down all the things that would be going through his head the next few days. When you go somewhere to get clean, you have nothing to use, and nowhere to go to escape your own thoughts.
Before I gave it to him I wrote in the very first few pages. I told him that I loved him. That I was proud of him. That he had so much to offer. That he was a good man. That I didn’t want him to die. I told him that I had seen the cactus while I was buying the book and it reminded me of him.
Christmas cactus’s are often in grocery stores and home improvement stores this time of year, yet it would be rare to find one even in a nursery any other month than December. They are seen as, similar to poinsettias, a plant that you buy for the season as decor, and then throw away after the holidays when it dies.
But they aren’t supposed to be thrown away. They aren’t supposed to die. They are a plant that can be grown indoors year round. If given the time and care, they will continue to grow and then bloom every winter.
I told him that, I thought, he was like that. That although he had neglected to care for himself, that he had forgotten what it meant to be alive, he did not have to die. That he was meant to carry on throughout the year. That this didn’t have to be the winter he threw his life away, but instead could be the winter he bloomed.
I gave him the plant and the notebook before he left and cried and hugged him tight. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and hope that he was finally going to be okay.
But
He left the hospital and was left alone to his vices, abandoned by someone who was supposed to be his friend.
By the time I realized what had happened and reached his house, ready to take him to rehab myself, it was too late.
My calls went unanswered, and he had fallen back into the horrible cycle of addiction merely hours later.
December 2025
The man that I gave the cactus to, the man that I loved so deeply as my friend, is now my husband. The man that I tried to save that night, ended up saving himself a few months later.
His mom told him on speaker phone the other day that the Christmas cactus “he had given her” was starting to bloom. We looked at each other and smiled.
I look into his eyes now, so full of life. I listen when he tells me his face hurts from laughing and smiling. I watch as he spends time with his family, and finds true joy in being someone they can count on. I see the incredible man he has always been, be visible to everyone else because he had the courage it takes to be honest, and to the strength it takes to change.
That cactus is still alive, and so is he.
One year later and he is not only still alive, but he has bloomed.
itmightnotbeok 