Josh Kaplan

When I was in college, a woman who lived off-campus, a former  college librarian, befriended me, just as she had done with many of the kids at the college over the years. She was in her mid-80s when we met, and Dacie Moses was her name--Dacie being a nickname for Candace.  

Her home, just off campus, was an oasis, a place to play a game of cribbage and to just get away from dorm life for a while. 

One day I asked her if I could have a cutting from her massive Christmas cactus. She happily agreed, but told me that I had to promise to take good care of it for the rest of my life. I assented, gladly. Dacie went on to say that her plant was given to her by her father, who was given it, “as the war was winding down before I was born.”

At that moment I did not think about what she was saying, but a couple of days later I asked her about “the war.” I asked her if her dad was in WW1. She laughed and repeated that her dad had been in war before she’d even been born.  

I cocked my head, and she smiled.   “Yes, he got this plant at the end of the Civil War.” 

I have watched over and loved my Civil War cactus ever since. Every year, at Easter (I don’t know why), it blooms. And I think of Dacie.