A story about plants, and a brother, and a son.

Welcome to Not a Doctor. I’m Melody Schreiber, a journalist and the editor of What We Didn’t Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth. I’m not a doctor, or a scientist, or really an expert of any kind. I just like to ask questions and try to find the answers to them.

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I am thrilled to publish an essay today with The New Republic. It’s about gardening, and climate change, and grief, and I hope all of these themes came together well.

Here’s an excerpt:

The summer of 2020 was a particularly low point for me. The pandemic kept us home even as racial violence brought us out to the streets; wildfires and storms battered our neighborhoods even as the Trump administration exited the landmark Paris agreement; a heated presidential election grew increasingly chaotic and nerve-racking. But most earth-shattering for me, my youngest brother died.

I felt surrounded by death, and I wanted more life.

So I started collecting plants.

It would mean the world to me if you would like to read the whole story and, should you feel so moved, share it. I’m deeply proud of it, and it encapsulates thoughts and feelings that spent years in formation.

I mentioned in the essay one plant in particular that reminds me of my brother. I wanted to share that story with you today.

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When my brother died, my friends showed up in ways I couldn’t have imagined. They sent cards and soup and plants. One of those plants was adorable and heart-shaped; I assumed, at the time, that it was a cactus; it must’ve been shaped by human hands as it grew, I thought.

I loved it.

When my brother was young, about the same age that my son is now, we made a little game for just the two of us. He would squeeze me in a hug as hard as he could, his little arms wrapped tight around my torso.

One day, I told him if he embraced me hard enough, he would break my heart. That became part of the game.

“Did I break your heart?” he would ask, eagerly.

I would shake my head no, and he would try again, until his encircled arms took my breath away and I would break away laughing: “You did it! You broke my heart!”

He would beam, then, and exult in his strength, and these tiny but mighty connections that we had to each other.

Every time I looked at my new plant, it reminded me of this memory.

But I was nervous. I had never been very good at keeping plants alive, and I was finding it particularly hard to go about daily life immersed in grief.

I tried my best, but the plant soon developed ominous-looking spots. Then, one day, my son bumped into it, and the heart broke.

I didn’t take it well. I cried, and then I cried harder when I saw my son’s face, stricken with remorse.

He rushed over to apologize, wrapping his little arms around me. Unbreaking my heart.

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I learned, over time, that the plant was not shaped by people; it grows naturally in the shape of a heart. And it wasn’t a cactus; it’s called Hoya kerrii. Hoya, coincidentally, are my favorite type of plant. I didn’t realize until a few months ago that the plant I had was a single leaf from the same vining plant.

I learned that the unfortunate passing of my plant in 2020 wasn’t because of my poor care or my son’s clumsiness. It’s very hard for these single-leaf plants to grow, since kerrii are supposed to vine—and the pot it came in, with no drainage, surely didn’t help.

Now that I’m a more experienced gardener, I decided this summer that I was ready to take on a new kerrii. I found a wild and bounteous plant that I immediately loved. But from the moment I brought it home, I knew I could be setting myself up for heartbreak: the kerrii was already outgrowing its enormous trellis, and, when I attempted to pull it out of its pot, I found that the roots had crept out of the drainage holes and wrapped thoroughly around the plastic.

Repotting and retrellising a plant like this is challenging, with a high likelihood of breaking some or even all of the vines into pieces. A plant with such personal meaning was doubly challenging.

I put it off for as long as I could, but eventually, I needed to fix this plant. I spent the evening of my birthday this year untangling the vines, cutting the plastic pot away from the roots, repotting the plant, and wrapping the vines carefully around a new trellis. The entire time, I had visions of vines snapping, but by the end, only a single leaf had broken off.

I put the single leaf in a tiny ceramic pot all by itself—and this time, it has a drainage hole. I’m going to give it to my son and tell him this story.

Perhaps it’s not the plants that bring us joy and respite. Perhaps it’s the way they connect us to other people, to the rest of the world—human and natural. The way we learn to survive and grow together, with broken hearts mended as best we know how.

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As ever, thank you for reading. Please leave a comment or email me (melodyaschreiber@gmail.com) if you have any questions or thoughts. And if you know someone who might appreciate this newsletter, please forward it to them!

Stay safe, and be kind.