Plants connect me to people from long ago and far away. From a Rocky Mountain high with the Mother succulent, I think of another daughter who has moved around a lot with her husband for the US Marines. With a giant leap over my location, she is 1800 miles away from her sister, and 1400 miles away from me. She has tried to keep her young girls involved in the fascinating world of plants by creating mini-gardens in different locations. Now a first-grade teacher in Coastal Elementary School, she recently shared a photo of a blooming Christmas cactus one of her students gave her. That made me think of my own mother.

Mother wasn’t much for tending houseplants or flowers, though she always helped plant, weed, harvest, and preserve garden produce alongside my dad. About thirty years ago, a friend she’d known since her college days in the 1930s gave her a Christmas cactus start. This was long after I’d left home and started my own family. Mother shared some Christmas cactus starts with me soon after she planted her own. She has been gone more than twenty years now and when this plant faithfully blooms at Thanksgiving time each year, (not Christmas!) I think of her. This prolific plant connects me to both my mother and my daughter. The circle is unbroken.