A parent's patience

Orchids are really expensive if you want a flowering plant. Me, I have a child to mind so I buy the seedlings. Orchid shows are a great source of really reasonably priced young orchid plants. I’m saying all of this to preface the fact that I have more than 30 different varieties in my collection. To a serious orchid aficionado that is nothing but to a regular person I’m sure that seems a bit excessive. I began collecting orchids when I was decorating my son’s nursery.

I picked a really bright yellow colour for the walls and decorated with white furniture and I wanted a white Phalaenopsis to complete the look. I found lots of other orchids but not what I was looking for. It turns out a few years later I did get my hands on one and it did not survive.

In the meantime, though I was already hooked. I took my infant son to orchid shows with me and at one I purchased a seedling. This was approximately five years ago, maybe more. I bought a hybrid Vanda pakchong blue crossed with something else.

Pakchong blooms look purple in regular light but when you take a picture the flower appears a royal blue. Drop dead gorgeous! I had no idea what the flowers of my hybrid vanda would look like but by faith I bought it anyway.

I planted it with another vanda orchid and waited. I watered and waited fertilised and waited then about three years later I saw a bud. You cannot believe just how excited I was, then the bud dried up and died without flowering. This happened another four times and I was beyond frustrated. The other vanda bloomed repeatedly, as if out of pure spite. While I enjoyed the flowers I was mocked.

To cut the five-year story short, after some thinly veiled threats that became openly vicious and ended with me quoting the Bible and promising to throw the plant away if I did not get flowers in the next three months, the orchid finally bloomed. I waited all of five years to get flowers out of this plant.

Five years of daily and sometimes twice daily watering, fertilising every two weeks. Five years of ensuring that it got just enough sun, adjusting so it was not too much and not too little. Five years of cleaning the leaves by wiping them with a damp cloth to keep the dirt and insects to a minimum. I hung this plant in a prominent place and did what I was supposed to do, repeatedly without results. I kept diligently caring for this plant. It took five years and they were the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen.

I could have cried. I showed off the blooms to any visitor; many felt they weren’t all that attractive but I remain convinced these are the best orchids ever. The love I feel is directly related to the amount of effort and patience it took for them to emerge.

Parenting a special needs child is a lot like raising an orchid. It’s the diligence to keep doing what you need to do even when you don’t see the fruit. To stick to the routines, the therapy sessions, the constant discipline, teaching simple tasks over and over. It is mundane It is draining and it feels like you’re spinning a top in mud. You’re going nowhere and there is no progress and it can feel like a massive waste of time.

Year after year, in spite of how you feel you keep going and doing. It may take years but like that orchid, I promise your child will grow and will develop, you will see the results of your diligent efforts over the years.

I never thought that I could learn patience from a plant, but if I could endure the waiting and still remain diligent in the face of it all with this orchid, how much more should I with my own child? How can I run out of patience with him? If I’m honest I’ve seen much more results already from my efforts invested in him.

He can walk, he can talk, he can go to the bathroom (even though he seems to not want to go unless he has an audience), he can read and write, he loves to tell jokes and do handicrafts and science experiments.

He’s really good in the kitchen and has impressive cookie and bread making skills for his age. He can tell you he’s hungry and what he wants to eat in Korean (that’s a welcome side effect of all the Korean TV I watch).

In his five years of life he has achieved so much.

I’ve stopped measuring him against other children, he is who he is and that’s just fine with me. I wait with anticipation to see what this flower of mine is going to grow up to be I’m so excited. I know the emotional, physical and financial cost it has taken to raise my son and I know the effort it takes from both him and I for my little boy to achieve anything.

My pride in him will be directly impacted by this and I do know when my little boy does flower, he will be the most spectacular or all and nobody will be able to convince me otherwise. Funny the things you can learn from a plant.

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