Hello Gorgeous

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May 07, 2007

Hello Gorgeous

Journaling says it all...
I got this amaryllis bulb in 1989 when I was 16. My floriculture teacher brought in a pot that was broken apart. From it she pulled out one large bulb covered with little bulbs. She gave a bulb to everyone in the class and as we potted them, she told us that the bulbs would bloom in about 20 years. As I planted it, I thought about what would happen to me in 20 years.
I named my amaryllis Emmarie and watched as time after time she would sprout 2 or 3 long green leaves. I learned that she did not like to be moved once she had leaves, even if it was just from one end of a shelf to the other. She’d fight back by getting orange at the ends of her leaves and dying off. Because of this and because I did not have a lot of room, Emmarie did not come to Central Michigan University with me. I entrusted her to my mom instead. It was probably for the best because in those days studying, sometimes more social than academic, took priority in my life.
When I got married and moved to Saginaw, Michigan in 1995, she was in the first car load of things I took to our loft. She sprouted leaves happily in the sunny windows for the year we lived there.
When we moved to Atlanta, Georgia after the 1996 Olympics, I purposely moved her and removed her leaves for the journey. When she sprouted again, it was in our new apartment. We moved into a new apartment in December of 1996 and stayed there until we closed on our house in December of 1998.
Since 1998, Emmarie has sat on the edge of the bathtub in our master bedroom. She was there when I was in labor with Sawyer in the bathtub August 2, 1999. She saw him take baths with me until he could sit on his own. (And even sometimes after even though he could sit on his own!) She reflected on Y2K and greeted the new millennium by watching herself in the tub filled with water- just in case. She sat next to me when I took cooling baths while I was pregnant with Bella who wedged herself into my hip bones from the minute she was conceived in November of 2001 until she was delivered July 24, 2002. After that Emmarie got more water from an extra splashing baby.
At the end of 2006, Emmarie dropped her leaves. Of course she had, it had gotten colder and her sunny window wasn’t as bright as it had been. However, this time she took longer to regrow her leaves. It wasn’t until late February that they began to come back. This time, however, a puffy leaf came up with it. I watched as that leaf puffed more and developed a stalk under it. The stalk carried the leaf, now a bloom waiting to happen, up into the bright window. I thought she was going to bloom for her first time at Easter, but she waited a few days more. Then suddenly, the bloom opened and showed 2 emerging flowers. They quickly came out over the next few days and by the following week, Emmarie had grown into herself.
We’ve been together a long time- 2 years shy of 20. We’ve been through graduation, boyfriends, weddings, relocation, jobs, and babies. I was so happy to see Emmarie finally bloom as she’s watched me bloom. And now I plan for us to bloom together from now on with more graduations, boyfriends, (and girlfriends) weddings, jobs, and babies.