When I was a small plant, barely knee high, a man named Robby “adopted” me for $3.99 from a Food Mart grocery store. My new home was a small two room office suite on Main Street in downtown Springfield, Mass. I learned later that the Rosenberg Fund for Children (a somewhat ambitious name for what was then a very small non-profit less than a year old) had moved to that space just before purchasing me. Previously, they were housed in an office within a larger suite donated by a sympathetic labor-side law firm.

The person who bought me called me Phineas. Phineas Ficus. From listening to conversations around me, I learned he was Robby Meeropol, the leader of the new organization and that he liked alliteration. I heard him explain that he “felt like I was like a member of the RFC family and needed a name.”

I spent a few years in that small space before the RFC expanded and moved to a bigger office in the same building. There was some staff turnover but Robby and Jane, who was something called a bookkeeper, were constants.

Robby liked gardening and plants; he called Patriots Day, the Massachusetts April holiday when the Boston marathon is run, “Robby in the garden day” and usually showed up the next day in an especially good mood. I guess that's how I ended up at the RFC; Robby liked plants and thought it would be good to have one in the office.

Eventually the RFC moved to Easthampton, Mass. and we settled in the Eastworks building, which had a lot more space; I had no complaints about my new home. It was bright and sunny, and I got plenty of love. After a while Robby did something they called retire, which initially felt more like abandonment to me. His daughter, Jenn, took care of me but I went through some rough times (the office was spacious but I was outgrowing my pot and getting rootbound). Fortunately, my coworkers eventually figured it out, repotted me and moved me to our current space. Good colleagues can really make or break a job, you know? Getting there was an adventure (I’m big enough that it’s hard for anyone to lift me and I barely fit through the door!). But I love the huge windows and sunlight; I’ll be happy if we never leave.