The Healing Journey

September 9, 2025

Julie’s friend Marcus gave her six plants from his garden. He called them “mushroom plants,” and they sat out there all summer because she never got around to planting them until the end of August. “What the heck is a mushroom plant?” she wondered as she pored over the gardening encyclopedias. The closest she could come was a form of sedum.

Finally, after realizing she couldn’t put it off any longer, she and Marcus got out there on a late August afternoon when you could smell autumn in the air. He dug the holes, mixed peat moss with the soil, and sprinkled it with a little fertilizer so the roots would take. Then, she watered them. He filled the dirt around the sides, and she patted it down and then sprayed them with a mist from the hose to clean them off.

Three on one side of the deck and three on the other side. But it wasn’t until later that night, after she showered and cleaned up and looked down at their handiwork, that she realized they weren’t lined up.

One was further out than the others. He promised to come back the next day and realign them because little things like that annoyed her. But it was an unkept promise.

Now, it was a year later, and he was gone. She looked at the thriving plants and could still see they were misaligned. She smiled because it reminded her of that day when she and her friend worked together. They were so proud of their accomplishment … except for the misalignment. But now even that pleased her because it was a memory she would cherish.

Later that evening, while she was thumbing through a garden magazine, she came upon an article about “Autumn Joy” sedum with its pink flowers and succulent foliage that blossoms and turns copper as autumn approaches. And she realized that is what her friend had been calling “mushroom plants” all those years.
©J Pisani

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