Contemplating the reblooms of spring

By Barton Goldsmith

Tribune News Service

What do you do with an orchid after the petals have fallen off? Unless you’re an expert on growing these exotic plants, you may have found that they never bloom for you again.

I still love these flowers, and when anyone who’s coming over asks what to bring, I always say, “An orchid, and whatever you like to drink.” It usually gets a laugh, but on my last birthday, it also got me several flowers. They bloomed for a few months — in fact, we were amazed at how long they lasted — but just as with most things rare and beautiful, they didn’t last forever. It was always a little sad when the petals fell.

I can’t stand just throwing out orchids. Sooner or later, I usually put the green leafed plants outside, and I’ve even tried putting them in the ground a couple of times, but with no luck. They’ve never rebloomed.

This year, however, my lovely wife had other ideas. A few of the plants were moved to a table in the living room, and some others were placed on the kitchen windowsill. I was given strict instructions to leave them alone — to stop throwing an ice cube in them every Saturday.

Not being the botanist in this relationship, I happily gave up wondering what to do with my flowerless orchids and let Mrs. Goldsmith take over trying to help them along.

At some points in life, even the most magnificent events come to an end. Life and love are only the two most obvious, but everything you have ever created or gotten involved with has had its own life cycle, right? So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the orchid purchased at Trader Joe’s was not going to outlast the frozen chicken breasts.

Still, when you are a seeker of truth and beauty, it’s almost always a little tough to live through an ending. As long as we are alive, things around us are going to, as therapists like to say, “transition.”

Now this experience happens to all of us in one way or another, but it can be followed by healing and sometimes another bloom. Sure, you can give up hope. It was easy to believe those orchids would never flower again. I’d just watch them wither in the atrium, as I did for so many years.

That is, it was easy until my wife decided she needed to come to their (and my) rescue.

Most of the current plants are at least a year old now. But they’re still green, and that’s a good sign. I mean, I’d rather be green and growing than ripe and rotting any day.

The flower lady kept moving them around the house, looking for the right light, like Ansel Adams in Yosemite, and her efforts were rewarded. A tiny new stem grew from one of the old ones that she hadn’t let me cut off. Then another one grew, and another plant — and now nearly all are flowering!

Yes, you can lose everything you think is important — your beauty, your wealth, even your family — but as long as you are alive, you can find new life within the one you thought was never going to bloom again.

Dr. Barton Goldsmith, a psychotherapist in Westlake Village, California, is the author of “The Happy Couple: How to Make Happiness a Habit One Little Loving Thing at a Time.” Follow him on Twitter @BartonGoldsmith.