Wilted Plants, Healing Hearts
I grew up on life advice from the family circle of a faith-filled, independent, ahead-of-her-time, traditional house-wife of a mother from the south. She never sees how much of a well-rounded incredible woman she is (I try to describe it here). I was surrounded by the family of a father raised in a strong matriarchal household focused on being loyal to family and Greek traditions combined with an appreciation for helping others to build a sense of community. I know that’s a mouthful of adjectives and I did not use AI to write it. I really appreciate where my parents came from and see it in everything I do and I want this story to show that.
Anyways, I loved the phrases or pieces of advice I got from the south. Ever have someone ask you to pick between two options and you reply, “It’s a horse a piece,”? Well I’ve been saying it all my life because my family would say it. It means there isn’t a better option. Another one is, “six one eggs, half dozen the other.” (They’re idioms for all my language nerds out there). I didn’t realize they weren’t necessarily well-known phrases until I was 40!
There were lots of life-lessons that I didn’t learn until around 40. Such as wrapping tin foil around the electrical plugs of Christmas lights is NOT a safe way to keep the winter precipitation from ruining the lights. If you’re a Damos family member, you probably know this story. Bless Yia’Yia’s heart. And Greg’s heart for going along with it for about the first 13 years of our relationship.
The southern-side of my family taught me that plants stay healthy based on the energy around them. I assumed this was obviously science because they’re all farmers. And, I always gave plants sunshine and water but they still died on me so I should probably check my energy. I know this sounds like advice that I believed when I was seven years old but I actually received it when I was thirty and my sister-in-law passed away suddenly. I was grasping at ways to hold on to her soul and it was probably my Granny or Uncle Bob that told me to make sure I maintain the plants that were gifted at the funeral.
They said funeral plants are such wonderful gifts for healing because they help you work through grief. They suggested that if I took a plant home from a funeral, at first it seems like it dies because I’m grieving, it absorbs my energy, and wilts. When I see it wilting, I need to speak kindly to it, reminisce about the soul that I missed, and eventually the reminiscing would shift to a more positive or therapeutic dialogue. All along, I am healing…do you see how this works?
For those of you who think this is far-fetched and I’m a little “too woo-woo,” for believing this at nearly thirty years old, remember that these little tid-bits of advice were what I was raised on. An uncle telling me that if I didn’t cover my mouth when I yawned or else the devil could jump in, is what taught me manners to always cover my mouth when I yawn and to make good choices to prove the devil hadn’t jumped in. Someone else told me that lifting your legs as you drive over railroad tracks was good luck (similar to knocking on wood). I learned to speak to the monarch butterflies because they deliver messages to and from heaven. If your eyelash falls out, make a wish and blow it away. I learned to say bless you whenever someone sneezes because their heart clenches in the middle of a beat and if they die, at least they were blessed. When I asked why I had a mole on my body, I was told it was where the sun kissed me.
These were all pieces of advice that taught me manners, helped me build faith in something bigger than me, and sound absolutely crazy as I type them out. But they always made me feel better. And one day, I started using them with first graders to help them feel better, too.
To be continued…
