My patient left me the plant I kept forgetting to water

Dear Delyara, I am an oncologist, and one of my patients died this morning. Her name was Mei. During treatment, she used to criticize the dying plant on my office windowsill. She said anyone trusted with human lives should be able to keep one pothos alive. Last month, when we both understood there would be no more treatment, she brought me a new plant and wrote instructions on a card: “Water when the soil is dry. Do not love it to death.” Today, her husband came after she died and handed me the ceramic pot she had kept beside her bed. He said she wanted me to have it too. There are now two plants in my office, one healthy and one nearly dead. I spent the afternoon discussing scans, medication, and survival percentages with other people while Mei’s empty chair remained against the wall. At six, I watered both plants. The water ran too quickly through the neglected one and spilled across a stack of forms. I wiped it up with my sleeve. Doctors are taught not to bring patients home. Mei has left me something living that requires attention on days when I am tired, distracted, or grieving. I am afraid I will fail it. I am more afraid of what it means that she believed I would try.