THE GREENHOUSE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I do not remember the mention in any of these monumental works the one fascination every woman shares and that is the love of plants and flowers. You rarely see a man in the garden section of Wall Mart or Home Depot. It is all women, carefully selecting, agonizing over which plant or flower to buy. And when you see them leaving the store with their acquisition their face radiates happiness and, tranquility. When I asked and wondered about this strong attribute, I learned that it is not only the appreciation of beauty and esthetics, but mainly the nurturing instinct. In that respect my wife Elizabeth was no different. She did not neglect her duties as a wife and mother, but made time for her plants and flowers.  To illustrate this huge difference between men and women, I need to remember the time when Elizabeth died and I was left with two hundred + plants in the house, among them some beautiful tall cactuses.

        Eva, our friend, wanted them all. I had already hired a truck to transport them across America to Nevada. At the last moment she stopped me, because her husband Joe told her, that when they arrive he would burn every one of them or destroy them by any means possible. Eva already had a collection of her own house plants. So, I gave most of them away locally and retained the ones Elizabeth cherished most. These plants, her favorites, are all still alive eighteen years after her death.

       In Poland – where Elizabeth and I met and lived in a single room dwelling, there was no room for flowers, but the moment we bought a house in Ohio, the flowers and plants started to accumulate. Every time we moved, the plants moved with us. By the time I was transferred to Rochester the plants took up a substantial space in the huge moving van and Louie, the driver, had to assure Elizabeth that no harm would come to them during the trip, and never mind the crystals.

        In our new spacious house in Chapel Hill North Carolina, there was a large deck, part of it made up of a substantial space and Elizabeth started talking about an addition for a greenhouse.  By that time the house was full − plants everywhere. Every time we visited the botanical garden, Elizabeth with pride, would point to a plant and say “We have that” At this point, when we settled down for retirement in the house of her dreams, disaster struck and Elizabeth was diagnosed with rapidly advancing inflammatory breast cancer. This is the conversation between us after the diagnosis and when she started treatment:

               Elizabeth: Well, there will be no greenhouse now.

               I: Why do you say that?

               Elizabeth: There is no sense spending the money going through all the trouble. They told me I will die very soon, I have thre         Three months at the most the doctors say, they can do nothing.

              I: We are going to build the greenhouse! And you will not die in three months.

              Elizabeth: But…

              I: No buts, we are building and I will call the builder tomorrow!

And so Elizabeth got the greenhouse and we both worked putting the tiles on the deck floor. Elizabeth worked on it even though she was weak after the chemo. She periodically forgot about her illness and dying. As our struggle with the cancer got intense, (all described in my book “Keeping Her Alive”). Elizabeth got busy arranging the coveted greenhouse. The struggle with cancer lasted three years during which Elizabeth was working and functioning at her career, also enjoying her plants until almost short of a month before she died, when suddenly and rapidly the situation got very critical. Thanks the unusual and caring doctor and our own efforts we had proven the “establishment” wrong.  “This is certainly a very unusual case,” said our principal doctor, the oncologist.

I asked Elizabeth, shortly before the end, which were her most favored plants. She pointed to a few among them a huge tree like, grown and nurtured from a mere stick, brought back from Hawaii and planted in a pot. It still grows in the greenhouse during the winter and on the deck for the summer. All of the ones Elizabeth pointed out are still thriving eighteen years later. I often wonder, is her nurturing spirit still watching over and around, keeping the plants alive, I am no gardener….  

 

Sven Sonnenberg, 5 Thorncroft Pl. Chapel Hill NC 27517

E-mail svens@aol.com , tel. 919 4038245

 

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