A Sad Tale

My mother-in-law desperately wants to see pictures of my kids, but she's coming to visit a week from Friday, and there's something I need to reveal now so she can come to terms with it before she arrives.

Jason and I are celebrating our 10th (!) anniversary next month. Shortly after we were married, I bought an avocado at the local Stop & Shop in Jamaica Plain, ate it, then planted the seed. For fun, I guess. I made several mistakes with it, but it managed to survive, even in our tiny third floor living room. It grew up to be tall and spindly and never developed a trunk (my fault). It turns out the avocado tree is not the most attractive plant.

Here's a random picture of it at about 5 years old.

It did better at times and worse at times. Sometimes it would seem to be almost dead, then suddenly have tons of new growth. Over the years, Jason decided it represented our marriage. My mother-in-law, Ann, totally bought into this. If she came to visit and it was doing poorly, she would assume we needed counseling. If it was doing well, she would be so happy for us.

At one point, I decided it was time to chuck the tree and start over, since I'd made so many mistakes with it. I thought it was just better to discard it and start fresh. Jason and Ann were deeply disturbed because (they said) this meant I was willing to toss a marriage aside that had so much history, even if there had been some rough spots, to start up with someone else. So the plant stayed.

At some point along the way Ann decided the plant not only was symptomatic of our marriage, but had control over it. We asked her to plant-sit it while we were in Europe for 10 days, and she said she "couldn't handle that much responsibility for your marriage." When we left town a year ago during the winter and forgot to bring it in, she was very concerned it would freeze.

Long story even longer, the avocado moved with us from Jamaica Plain, to Stoneham, to Durham, to our house in Raleigh. We put it out on the back porch, where it thrived. Jason lopped off the main part of the top of it, leaving only one tiny branch with leaves, and it took off. It finally developed a trunk, and flourished in the humid southern air. Jason took it as a sign that after 10 years of post-graduate training, we were in a better place than ever before. (I can't argue with that.)

Here it is around year 7 in our townhouse in Stoneham, outside Boston. It's in the overexposed area in the window.

And here it is today. In November, we had several nights in a row of below-freezing temps. We lost my basil plant, and then this. I'm not sure what to say. It was doing so well, and thriving so much, we just forgot to pay attention to it. The conditions were perfect, so we never had to water it, or even think about it. And then it was suddenly gone. Does the marriage allegory still apply?

Jason and I are still together, and I *think* our marriage is going to be okay without the magic feather. But maybe tomorrow I should plant a new avocado, just in case...