An Amaryllis Impact

During the years my husband and I raised our children, we joined the community band for a few years. It was our time to be people instead of parents. For a short period of that time, another gal joined who sat next to me. We got chummy right away and early on we discovered that we were related to each other. My new friend/cousin and I found that our great, great grandmother was the same person. (This happened to me a few times over the years. I have a number of cousins I didn’t grow up around as my parents had ten children and not a lot of time to get together with our large extended family.) In the short time we spent together, we bonded (as only cousins’ bond), and she told me that she had amaryllis bulbs that had been our great, great Grandma’s bulbs and asked if I would like some of the offshoots.

Anyone who is Facebook friends with me will know about my amaryllis flowers as I love to post pictures of them – ad nauseum (thank you dear friends for putting up with me!). But the joy of getting them to flower is far superseded by the rich history of the plants. I have lots of beautiful flowers in my gardens, but none of them have the same impact on me as great, great grandma’s amaryllis (except one that my mother gave me and my bleeding hearts that were my grandmother’s favorite flower). Great, great Grandma had brought the original bulbs over on the ship from Norway when she had immigrated to North America with her six daughters. Two of the daughters married two brothers and to this day there is a mixed yearly reunion of both families. They have met for close to a hundred years – with the exception of the year of covid.

At one of the reunions, I reconnected with another gal I graduated with from high school. I was sure she must have been related to the other family, but it turned out she was on my side of the family. You never know who you may meet when you’re out and about, but it’s especially cool when you find you have more family out there than you knew. It gives you a bigger sense of belonging. A sense of belonging is important to humans. We need to connect with other people, but when we can say we belong to something bigger, something real, something that makes us feel secure – that is a gift of confirmation, of support. A gift that says, “we belong, we are part of something – we are not alone.”

But back to the amaryllis bulbs. My newly found cousin gave me a pot with some of the bulbs and I happily nurtured them for about 25 years. Every two or three years, I’d be thrilled to have one bloom, and the years in between I’d wonder if it was worth hauling them – at least a half a dozen pots – to the basement every fall to rest, bring them back up about six weeks later to nurture them back to life, then in the spring to kick start their new year of growth by hauling them outside. I’d care for them all summer, and start it all over again the next fall – all for a meager, occasional flower stalk (there are generally three flowers to a stalk, but sometimes four or only two). My (ex) father-in-law had hybrid amaryllis that bloomed for him yearly, and when I asked him what his secret was, he said he never put them in the dark for a rest time; he just put them outside in the summer, watered and fed them and brought them back in before the cold set in. So, somewhere around the twenty fourth year of “raising” them, we realized we should try feeding ours (duh.) more often. Whenever we fed the vegetable garden, the amaryllis bulbs were fed. After a few years, we began to get flowers regularly – not just one, but one or more in most of the pots. This past year we have gotten over a dozen flower stalks; that’s over thirty flowers. There would have been more, but I’ve been gifting them.

Whether I get one amaryllis flower stalk every three years or 20 in one year, the joy of seeing that flower is tenfold for every other flower in my garden. Yes, they are a little bit of a pain bringing them in and out, watering and feeding, putting up with a pile of plants (I have well over a dozen pots this year as the feeding of them also grows many more bulbs to separate and replant), but I have been able to gift the new bulbs to a number of family members who have been blessed with flowers themselves – those are the “there would have been more” I was talking about. How wonderful it is to see them blooming for others; but the best blessing was when the cousin who had given them to me told me hers had all died – I was pleased to be able to give her some back.

My cousin and I were in band together for a very short spell, but if we had not met, had not bonded, had not shared in the family history, and had not given/received a pot of amaryllis bulbs – the bulbs would be forever gone. Whether you are related by blood or by love, build your family, share your history, your life, your love with other people. If you’ve been adopted into another family and can’t connect with your blood family – love and connect with the family you were given. If circumstances make that difficult, make a new family. Families have history, so maybe you won’t have generations of history behind yours, but you can create one today. You can create it for yourself, for other members, and for your offspring. Each generation can be built brick upon brick of strengths, joys, trials, achievements. Belonging to something bigger than just yourself, something that is a gift: family. No matter the dysfunction, the battles, the differences, family – of any sort – loves you no matter what. And that gives a sturdy foundation for every member, especially children, to build their lives on. If you’ve missed out on a family history, make one. Start today. Build your family into a foundation for the generations to come to stand on. Be a foundation yourself.

And, like we do with our amaryllis bulbs, feed and water the family with love – not the noun, love, but the verb, the action – nurture those separate family entities and watch the blooming begin.

~*~

How do you create a sense belonging in a family?

Taken from Family Focus Blog author, Scarlet Paolicchi

Have a family photo wall: this shows children that they matter and helps them feel that sense of belonging.

Spend time with family: builds relationships, so when trials come, love is ready to jump in. Strong family bonds make us more resilient to changes and challenges of life. It can be bedtime stories, game or movie nights, tossing a ball around, or cooking, cleaning, shopping, gardening, or building (core activities) or it can be occasional planned special events or vacations (balance activities).

Advantages of family time for children: increased academic success (parents provide help and guidance when needed), develops parenting skills, less behavioral problems (when communication skills are being used and taught and if children know they can come to you with their problems without fear of negative reactions), less likely to be violent, lower chance of drug abuse, much happier, greater self-confidence, conflict resolution skills (learning to work through an argument in a constructive way), increased chances for success.

A positive family environment allows people of all ages to blossom instead of worry. We need to be there for each other and help each other to be better.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, grandparents can be a great asset. So, an extended family (grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins) gives us more people with which to exchange love and care. It gives an even sturdier foundation to build your life on.