Schlumbergera

Ha!  You don't know what Schlumbergara is, do you?  If you're wondering what I fell in love with today, let me tell you by its better-known name.  Christmas cactus.  You know what that is.

My Christmas cactus was given to me a dozen years ago by a friend/neighbor down the street.  It was on the occasion of my husband's death.  I have managed to keep the plant alive all these years, although there was the one summer when I innocently put it outside, thinking it would enjoy the warm sun.  I very nearly killed it.  And it still isn't back to where it was before I tried to roast it.

I have seen pictures of friends' Christmas cactuses.  There are dozens of blooms on them.  I'm lucky if mine puts out three.  Right now, today, the day I decided to fall in love, my Christmas cactus has a total of two flowers.  There is no evidence of more to come.

There they are.  You can see why I am in love with them.

Think about it.  If my sorry Christmas cactus was full of dozens of flowers, would I be able to fall in love?  Try to remember Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince.  On his journey away from home, the Little Prince discovers that he loves the rose he left behind very deeply, despite her vanity and demands.  When he comes upon a rose garden, full of flowers just like his, he is sad, because his rose told him that she was the only one of her kind.  But what he learns is that love makes a person responsible for the beings that one loves.The Little Prince loves his rose and is responsible for her.  Shortly thereafter, he returns to his planet, and presumably, his rose.

I am responsible for those I love.  Today, I will count among them the two flowers that have exuberantly shown themselves to me two days before Christmas.  And I'm going to water them right now.