A friend once gave me a slip of her gorgeous Ivy plant. Every time I was over at her place I raved about how beautiful it was (and it was). They’d planted it the year her daughter married, as a gift, and then had to house it for a while. Not long ago, though, the plant died. While her daughter’s family was staying with them (moving transition), one of their plants had transferred some kind of bug which destroyed it.
The slip she’d given me has grown into two fabulous plants, which I keep above the sink and fridge.
I love Ivies. I love the way they just grow and grow and grow and don’t have the sense enough to stop. I love that you can send them off in a different direction and there they’ll travel, like they had every intention of going there anyway.
My friend is going to take some slips off my Ivy plants soon so she can start another one; technically, it’s still the same plant.
I love friends. I love that they can invest in you, and one day–when their plants die–you can give back to them. You never know when that’ll be, though, and no one’s really keeping track. I love how friends keep going and going and going and never have the sense enough to stop. And, even when your life takes a turn in directions you hadn’t planned on going in, there they are right beside you.
Like they’d intended to be going that way all along.
Consider This 
I adore ivy. My old house had masses of ivy tendrils winding around and up the chimney on the side of the house. People were always warning us that it could eventually infiltrate the mortar between the bricks, but I didn’t care. I just loved how it looked.
[…] And that has me thinking about some of the relationships in my life. Maybe I’ve just mollycoddled the life right out of them. I just can’t figure out where I went wrong, but, thank God I’m surrounded by so many finicky ferns flourishing despite all the shaking they get sometimes. And, I still have those gorgeous Ivies. […]