Love blooms after loss: Japanese netizen commemorates grandparents’ romance, gardening skills

Twitter user is taking the gorgeous blossom that bloomed after her grandmother’s passing as a token of her grandfather’s deep and abiding love.

Factual or fictitious, humans can’t escape news about death, and try as we might we can’t avoid our own mortality – nor can we avoid the eventual deaths of those we care about. It’s a topic we’re surrounded by and yet are unable to fully comprehend, and when we’re given even the slightest hint to help make sense of our loss, we grab it with both hands. Maybe that’s by using our skills to commemorate our lost loved ones as best we can; maybe we just have to do our best to live a good life in their honor. Sometimes, we get a bittersweet hint of what might lie beyond death, and that can make it easier to swallow.

Twitter user @an_nindo_fu was having an understandably rough time processing her grandmother’s death, but something beautiful came blossoming forth to help her through the process. She took a photograph and shared it with Twitter:

祖母が亡くなったんですけど、20年以上も前に亡くなった祖父が育ててたｻﾎﾞﾃﾝの花が、祖母の亡くなった次の日に咲きました。今まで咲いたことなかったのにね。 ちなみにｻﾎﾞﾃﾝの花言葉は、 ｢偉大｣｢燃えるような愛｣そして｢枯れな… twitter.com/i/web/status/9…

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a無⛰理n (@an_nindo_fu) May 21, 2018

“My grandmother passed away. The day after she passed, this cactus flower bloomed… Even though it had never bloomed once before, not in all the 20 years since my late grandfather first planted it.”

The photograph depicts two beautiful cactus flowers in full bloom: delicate, sloping petals in pastel pink, each sporting a forest of powdery peach stamens with one long and elegant stamina sprouting from the center. @an_nindo_fu goes on to explain the flower’s relevance in flower language:

“In flower language, a cactus flower means ‘something momentous’, or ‘a love that smoulders like fire’, or even ‘a love that shall not wither’. My grandmother is deeply beloved even now…”

A user commented to the thread: “Those blossoms are really, breathtakingly beautiful. Condolences for the loss of your grandmother… I really hope she got to meet up with your grandfather on the other side.”

@an_nindo_fu responded with good cheer, saying “He’ll probably be like, ‘I was about to run out of patience waiting for you, darn it!'”

Plenty of other replies echoed this first sentiment, with many more condolences and multiple instances of “This brought tears to my eyes” and “I’m sure they’re together in Heaven now”. It was honestly a little striking how similar so many of the messages were, and how similar again they are to the things we say to people around us who are grieving; how similar, once more, they were to the comments we ourselves receive in troubled times.

Whatever your position in life on death, there’s something comforting about a gardener’s cherished plant finally coming into bloom once his wife has also been laid to rest. In times when it’s hard to know how to comfort someone, or even to comfort yourself, the world presents you with something unexpected – and even poetic – like this and helps the grief to digest. For a similarly touching (but slightly more zany) tale about processing grief, don’t miss the story about one old man’s experience with Pokémon GO at his late wife’s grave.

Featured image: Twitter/@an_nin_dofu
Source: Twitter/@an_nin_dofu

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