Phedre Fitton died 4 years ago of ovarian cancer. Before she passed away, she told her husband to do one very important thing: take care of her plants in the washroom of their home in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Her words stuck with her husband —. Nigel Fitton was a diligent husband who made sure that he kept his promise and watered her plants every day for the past four years.
CTV News heard from the couple’s daughter, Antonia Nicol, that Nigel was so proud of himself for having kept his beloved wife’s plants alive for so long.
Apparently, Phedre was quite the prankster when she was alive and it looks like she just had the last laugh with one last prank.
Nicol, who is a firefighter based in London, was helping her father move into a retirement home when they realized that the plants that he had been so lovingly taking care of all these years were actually made of plastic!
Nicol said: «There wasn’t much light in the bathroom, so my mum had replaced the plants with plastic ones. None of us knew. We all found it hilarious. Especially my dad who had been so impressed he hadn’t killed them off.»
The interesting question is what happened to all the water that he was pouring into the pots all these years if the plants were fake? «My poor dad probably thought the toilet had a permanent leak as there was always water on the floor,» commented on her post.
Nicol’s post of her dad and the plastic ferns has gone viral on Twitter raking in 40k retweets and 133k likes. In the post, she writes that she can «almost hear [her] mum chuckling» when they found out.
«She was very funny. Had a cheeky sense of humor for sure,» she wrote in one comment. «It’s really made us all happy as a family to remember her like this.»
According to Nicol, her parents met when they were only 16 years old and in high school. The pair had been together ever since then.
«They were best friends. They worked together, traveled together and were never apart,» she wrote.
View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter
Have just received the most stunning bouquet of beautiful flowers and a REAL fern from @BloomandWild & @oskarpearson
The card reads "We enjoyed your mother's sense of humour and your story so much. Please enjoy these with our complements"
Thank you so much ♥ ♥ @dannywallace pic.twitter.com/PfGuPPIIIA— Antonia Nicol (@Flaminhaystack) January 19, 2018
Ever since the story of Nigel and his dedication to watering his wife’s fake plants went viral, he’s been slowly getting used to all the attention.
«My dad has just sent a message saying that it’s brought a tear to his eye and he hopes it’s made people happy,» she said.
He apparently enjoyed reminiscing so much about the prank that his wife pulled that he posed for a photo watering the fake plants and sent it to Nicol.
«It’s got our family and friends all chatting about my mum again which is really lovely and it feels like she’s right here with us, laughing along,» Nicol said. Her mother had died of cancer at the age of 69.
Before my mum passed away, she gave my dad strict instructions to water the plants in the bathroom. He's been religiously watering them & keeping them alive. They look so amazing he decided to take them to his new home, only to discover they are plastic! Can hear my mum chuckling pic.twitter.com/N87giD5zKT
— Antonia Nicol (@Flaminhaystack) January 16, 2018
«She’d fought cancer for 5 years but it beat her in the end in November 2013. My parents live in South Africa whilst I live here, so it was a very difficult time for us all,» she told Indy100.
