There’s a plant in my kitchen window. His name is Kevin.
There are a few stories behind this.
First, where Kevin came from: He was the centerpiece on the table at a foster parent appreciation day back in May. When I was leaving, McKean County foster care coordinator Lisa Johnston and Children and Youth Services director Dan Wertz insisted I take the plant.
I am not a plant person. On the other hand, my mother once picked up a leaf from the floor of Woolworth, took it home and made it into a huge, thriving plant.
I once killed a cactus from lack of watering.
I insisted the folks at the event could find a safer home for the innocent plant. No, they insisted, I was the right person. I needed to give that plant a good home.
“He will die a gruesome, dry death,” I told them. He will be fine, they said.
Against my better judgment, I took the plant home.
“Why did you get a plant?” my daughter asked when I got home. “You know you’ll just kill it.”
It was then, in that moment, that I felt my heart grow 10 sizes, kinda like the Grinch when he hears all of Whoville singing.
“I will not,” I told her. “Kevin will be fine.”
She shook her head and walked away.
Why Kevin, you wonder? Well, that is the second part of the story.
Years ago, the actor Ed Asner came to Bradford as part of the Bradford Creative and Performing Arts Center’s season. He performed the one-man play, “FDR.”
I interviewed him by phone for a preview story. He said he’d recently had surgery to have a pacemaker-defibrillator implanted. I told him my daughter had one. We talked about her for several minutes.
When the interview was done, and I was about to end the call, Mr. Asner asked me if my daughter had seen the Disney movie “Up,” in which he voiced the main character, a grumpy old man named Carl. Well yes, of course, she had. This next part will make sense only if you’ve seen the movie.
“Tell your daughter Carl picks her to be Russell’s Ellie,” Mr. Asner said.
Russell was the lonely little boy who brought out the good in Carl after the death of his precious wife Ellie. Along the way in the story, they come across an exotic bird that Russell names Kevin.
Kevin ends up being a mama bird.
Back to the plant. Now it’s five months later. Kevin, a luseane, also known as a dwarf umbrella tree, has grown to the point that I had to get him a bigger pot. He isn’t in his new home yet; I want to paint it first.
I am far more involved with this plant than I’d like to admit. I even bought him potting soil.
The day that I picked out Kevin’s new pot and the soil, I picked up an aloe vera plant too.
It’s also in my kitchen.
I find myself talking to them as I do the dishes.
“You know they won’t answer you, right?” my daughter asked snidely as she walked by.
“They listen better than you,” I snapped back. Suddenly, there’s a sibling rivalry.
I need to name the aloe. I’m thinking Alistair, after my favorite Cookie Monster character on Monsterpiece Theater.
And maybe those folks at the county Department of Human Services know what they’re talking about.
(Schellhammer is the Era’s associate editor. Judging by this column, we think she might need a vacation.)
