The nursing home.
They spoke gently, professionally, as if trying to cushion the words. My mother had passed away in her sleep early that morning.
I remember sitting down on the floor because my legs suddenly wouldn’t hold me. Forty days. That was all she had after leaving her home. After leaving me.
They told me she’d left her plant for me. And a note.
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I picked them up a few days later. The plant looked the same—green, alive, stubbornly thriving. The note was folded neatly, her handwriting careful and familiar.
“Search inside the soil,” it read.
“I am sorry. I wish I could give you more, but this is all I have…”
My hands shook as I brought the plant home. I waited until the kids were asleep before I knelt on the kitchen floor, spreading old newspaper beneath the pot. I told myself not to expect anything. It was probably nothing—just one last habit of hers, one last gentle request.
I dug slowly, fingers brushing through cool, damp soil.
Then my hand hit something hard.
I froze.
Buried at the very bottom were three small plastic bags. Inside each were a few gold coin pieces, dulled by time but unmistakably real.
Three bags.
Three children.
I sat there on the floor, dirt on my hands, the plant tipped over beside me, and I broke down in tears so deep they stole my breath. I had no idea those coins existed. No idea she’d been saving them—hiding them—protecting them.
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She could have used that money. She could have made her last days more comfortable. She could have asked for better care, better food, maybe even stayed home a little longer.
But she didn’t.
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