The 7 Things Houseplants Taught Me About Death Acceptance
Is taking care of plants the most death positive hobby?
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about death. As an obit writer, death blogger and adult orphan, I engage with my mortality every day. Even though most scary death stuff has been demystified over the years, thoughts of life’s end occasionally become overwhelming. I’m only human.
Death is so baked into all aspects of my life that I decided to counterbalance the doom and gloom with a relaxing, life-affirming hobby: plants. I didn’t realize that this cheerful diversion was about to turn my handful of losses into scores. But bringing plants into my life taught me to truly accept death.
Plants have a lot to teach us about death, grief and living well. Here’s what I learned.
1. Death happens, and there’s often no one to blame.
None of my past botanical attempts had been successful, so I decided to turn over a new leaf (literally and figuratively) by buying a new plant. My first plant — a China Doll — is still alive and well at the time of this writing. My second plant — a bromeliad — was dead as a doornail within two weeks. After a month of denial, I composted the dried husk in secret, and privately blamed myself.
