My dearest Reader I know I’ve been a disaster to follow this week.  But I promise you I am working very very very hard to get back on the wagon.  By next week it’ll be over and we’ll be right back to What A Single Woman Needs.  For the moment, however, I have something to be grateful for.

Snow White.

Snow White bloom stalk

As you know I love my orchids.  They, like my rainbows, come through for me when I need them most.  It’s like the smell of a crisis coming on gets their juices up and makes them pucker and fight until they spit out a bloom.  Snow White broke a few days back when everything was breaking.  But her story isn’t over yet.

She was given to me in a moment of deep darkness to show me some light.  When I first got the plant it sat on my porch and grew.  I put it outside one day for a good rain and an iguana got to her, eating every leaf and having a nibble on her stalk as well.  I was so upset I left her outside to die and to dry up and wither, and wither she did.  A few weeks later I stepped outside to shake off the porch mats and looked down to see something green crawling on her withered and chewed stalk.  I got closer and saw it wasn’t moving.  It was a brand new leaf!  Snow White was alive!

Snow White FOUR FEET TALL!

She grew and grew even past the bamboo until the next disaster.  In a tropical storm before I had the chance to bring her inside some wind lit into her and split her down the middle.  With a bit more faith this time I planted the two stalks in separate pots with a prayer.  They have grown beautiful and tall ever since.  A month or so ago the shorter of the stalks came into snow-white dendrobium blooms.

A few days ago Lola broke her stem and snacked on a stalk of flowers.  I mourned as everything else broke.  But today the big stalk, the one that is now four feet tall, has just shot out a promise.  More flowers to come.  And Snow White isn’t alone!  One of my tiny orchids is also wagging its little finger at me with a flower stalk for another colour starting to turn themselves into buds.

No matter what happens I am never alone.  There is much beauty in my life to be grateful for.