The plant had been thrown to the floor no less than 5 times in the past 3 days. The soil was spread all over the floor and leaves of the plant were tossed all around the room. It was clear that if I picked it all up that the cats would simply knock the plant down again. So, this time, I picked it all up and took it to the garage to repot the plant and find a new home for it. 

Most of the soil had been lost over the multiple falls and was likely in the vacuum cleaner at this point. As I scooped handfuls of potting soil back around the roots of the plant I started to speak to her.

“I am sorry” I said as I gently patted the soil around the root ball. 

The plant was one of my favorites and just last week I had been thinking how big and beautiful she was and how she likely needed to be split and repotted. She was dark green and filled with life. She trailed all down the stool and her large leaves danced in the sunlight that came in through the window. I looked down at her remembering just how large and beautiful she had been only days before. Now, she was shredded and broken and moderately mangled. I took a pair of scissors and began to cut broken parts of her off. As I cut away broken and dead parts of her I continued speaking.

“I know that this is hard but I promise you that it will give you the opportunity to rest, heal and come back even better than before.” I said as I carefully cut away broken parts of her.  I had repotted many plants in my life and every time that I cut one back or separated one or repotted a damaged one I knew what would happen. At first, the plant would look sad and unwell and then slowly it would start to come back to life and eventually, you never would have known that it had ever been split or broken or cut back.

As I carried the newly potted plant back into the house looking for a good space for it to recover in, a spot where the cats wouldn’t find her, I began to wonder how many times the universe does this exact thing to us as humans. How often does the universe pick us up, brush us off, cut away dead and dying parts of us and put us in a new home where we will thrive?