Many years ago, my mother-in-law Mary Lee gave me a small bougainvillea plant in a plastic nursery pot. I excitedly told her I couldn’t wait to plant it and watch those delicate fuchsia petals grow up against the white fence in our backyard.

But I was genuinely intimidated. At the time, it seemed like I was in a never-ending series of auditions with my husband’s mother, and I didn’t know the first thing about bougainvillea plants. Was this a test? I had already failed the baking audition (she learned to bring her own pie pans and ingredients when she came to visit us after concluding my kitchen was woefully ill-equipped to bake a proper cherry pie for her son).

Hoping she might forget about the bougainvillea the next time she visited from the midwest, I planted that little shrub-ling and watered it regularly for the first several months. It survived (phew!) The leaves shriveled and died during the winter, but they grew back with enthusiasm the following spring. I couldn’t wait for the return of those silky fuchsia petals.

But they never came back. Summers came and went, and the green leafy branches of the plant grew wider and fuller, dominating their allocated space, but those colorful petals never reappeared. I had bombed another daughter-in-law tryout. Why wouldn’t it bloom for me? What was I doing wrong?

To add injury to insult, pruning the withered limbs every winter became a painful and bloody affair. Bougainvillea branches are studded with long, sharp thorns that can go straight through the sole of a sneaker and poke a painful hole in unsuspecting human flesh.

After several seasons of skin punctures, bloodletting and torn clothing, my husband and I contemplated whether we should just cut our losses and pull that sadistic, unproductive plant out by the roots and throw it in the woods. We used to joke that Mary Lee purposely gave it to me knowing those darn thorns would ensure I never forgot she was the boss.

Mary Lee was a strong-willed, opinionated woman who loved her three sons with a fierce and unwavering intensity. They meant everything to her, and although she never said it out loud, she had high expectations for their wives. I desperately wanted to make the cut, but never felt like I could get past probation with her. My husband and I were both recovering from failed first marriages when we met – and I assumed that my less-than-perfect past handicapped her ability to ever fully accept me.

It wasn’t the sort of dynamic that produces a close and trusting relationship. Our conversations were mostly pleasantries and retelling family stories from the past.

And then Mary Lee started to fade behind the veil of dementia. Her outer toughness softened into a new vulnerability that welcomed me with an openness she had never shown before. I no longer felt like she was daring me to try and be good enough for her son. The walls of resistance were falling away, and she seemed willing to accept her previously-married, daughter-in-law who couldn’t bake and didn’t eat red meat.

When Mary Lee passed away in 2013, I said goodbye to a woman I only knew from a distance – and regretted having been so focused on trying to earn her approval I never dropped my guard long enough to learn her story.

On a fall day a few years ago, I was pulling weeds along the fence and was startled to find a big clump of those beautiful fuchsia petals I had been waiting for basking in the sun on Mary Lee’s bougainvillea. What?

I did a quick Internet search and learned that Bougainvillea are supposed to bloom in the fall and early winter, not the spring and summer!

I felt equal parts foolish and relieved. In my ignorance, I made assumptions about that poor plant and gave up on it when it didn’t produce. If only I hadn’t been so focused on what it wasn’t doing – and instead trying to figure out why – I could have been enjoying those bright colorful petals all along.

Just like my relationship with Mary Lee. By the time I finally realized she was also a woman with hurts and regrets in her past, it was too late.

Every plant has a growing season. Every person has a story. I didn’t need to know the details of Mary Lee’s story. I just needed to look past my own story long enough to recognize that she had one, too.

And she continues to teach me through that bougainvillea. I have even learned how to carefully grasp its branches between the thorns so I can cut the stems for a pretty centerpiece without getting hurt.

Thank you, Mary Lee.

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19)