On my 21st birthday I received a plant from some friends. I thought it was funny because it felt like a gift of responsibility. I would make jokes about whether it was still alive, and how nervous I felt about my duty of making-sure-it-lived. It had pretty leaves in a fancy pot, with the name - 'Ficus Elastica Ruby', also known as rubber tree plant.
I would often forget to water it, and definitely did not appreciate it as much. When my grandparents came over from Malaysia to live with us for a while, that plant never looked as good as it did! (My grandpa (kong kong 公公) even watered a fake plant that we had in the living room, much to my mum's amusement). Despite my neglect it still came into its own over 6 months and grew somewhat into the resemblance of a little tree. As time went by I learned to admire its existence. It would survive even if I forgot to water it for a couple weeks.
That soon changed in January this year, when I went to Nepal for 3 weeks over the December holiday period, and then came back for only a short couple of days before going to Sydney for work for 2 weeks. In that time, I had forgotten all about the plant. It deteriorated, and nobody noticed it until it was too late.
When I returned, I was pretty disappointed to see the state that it was in. I tried my best to salvage it over the next couple of days by researching ways to revive it. However, as hard as I tried, my attempts were fruitless. Only when it died and had to be thrown out did I realise how beautiful it was. I would later learn that it had variegated leaves. This meant that it had leaves of different colors, mine was a blend of dark green and red. I never thought about how rare that was until it was gone. Unfortunately, there is no picture of it - which I guess makes my lack of appreciation clear!
When the pandemic hit us, its effects were surreal. It was almost as if the world changed in the span of a couple of weeks. In March my workplace texted us mid-week, encouraging us to work from home over the next 2 days, and a clear directive for all employees to work remotely from the next week onwards.
Physical distancing restrictions triggered a surge in plant sales. People were bored and looked for things to do, and gardening was one of the things you could do without any worry of social distancing. Amidst the quietness and additional free time, I guess we as people also learned to love the work of putting some effort into a thing that takes time.
Since the death of Ruby Ficus Elastica, I've built up a small plant family of my own.
These are the pictures I took today, along with the period of acquisition.
