The Prickly Cactus
Like a greeter it stood, there in front of 23 East Street. We had come to an open house to what would become our first home. The prickly cactus reached up to my shoulders. Its needles looked large enough to draw blood and its stillness was foreboding.
I paid little attention as I passed by. I should have seen it for the trouble it was.
On move-in day, I tore a hole in my favorite t-shirt on that cactus. The sadness over the loss was drowned by the excitement over this new stage of our lives. I had recently discovered I was pregnant and planned to tell you that evening. I was too focused on the many beautiful memories ahead of us to worry about some old shirt.
The next time the cactus caused trouble, I was not so positive. Junie had begun walking and took a tumble by it, procuring a scratch across her face.
“It’s got to go!” I told you. No place for this dangerous plant in a yard with a toddler, so, you dug it up and hauled it off to the compost service. Two weeks later we had a six-inch cactus in the same spot.
We threw up our hands. Let it be. It mostly kept to itself, after all. There were even a couple years that it flowered.
Those were good years, the flowering years. The year you started your new job and the year Junie graduated with honors. Most years passed with only minor scratches.
It all began to crumble the day you fell into the cactus while mowing the lawn. The day you lost your job. Twelve stitches later, we were determined to be rid of it for good.
A landscape company came out, assured us they would take care of it. We thought they had, until the day I saw a two-inch cactus breaking through the soil. The day I discovered you were cheating.
On the day of closing, divorced and on my way to settle near Junie, the cactus flowered.
“Good riddance,” I said, walking past one last time. I wonder what my life would have been like had I decided I didn’t want a yard with a big prickly cactus.
I like the symbolism of the cactus.
This post reminds me of my grandfather's garden. He has tons of red palm tree seeds and all us grandchildren play with the seeds, but then my sister burst it open and made her very itchy to touch it. So my grandmother asked to chop down the palm tree.