It all started when my parents decided they were going to have the best garden on our small suburban street. Mom was in a frenzy because she overheard a neighbor apologize for our lawn, suggesting our garden was a wreck because it was owned by a working mother.
Now, my parents have many talents but neither can tell the difference between a daisy and a mountain lion, so Dad soothed the hysteria by hiring an expert gardener named Jim.
Jim had rough, dark hands. His callused palms made an audible scraping noise when he rubbed them together– and that scratching was the only sound he made while he listened to my parents. Dad explained how they sought realism, even in the midst of their need to win the non-existent garden prize.
The garden could not require more than minimal maintenance or possess any poisonous plants.
It was only a matter of time before my little brother ate whatever grew in there, after all.
They worked out a plan and exactly one week later, Jim was digging one of the ugliest plants I had ever seen in the center of our garden. It was a tall green stick with sharp green leaves sticking from every angle.
He assured Mom that our gardening neighbors would be in awe. It’d be the centerpiece, surrounded by easy-to-maintain edible wildflowers. He explained that it would blossom, live for a bit, and then die. Then he’d come back and plant a new one.
I was fascinated. I followed Jim around and asked the same question in a million different ways.
“Hey, Jim, will it maybe bloom this week, die, and then bloom again? Or what if it blooms two flowers? Or what if we plant a leaf, will we get two whole plants?”
“Nah, honey,” he’d say to every answer, “That’s not how this magic works.”
Jim was patience personified and a wonderful gardener. Before he even finished, we had neighbors coming by for a closer look. He told everyone that Mom designed the whole thing.
After finishing up, he whispered to me, “Whenever you’re lonely, just talk to the plant. It’ll help it grow.”
Never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, my parents latched onto this philosophy and would send me to the kitchen nook to lean out the window and talk to the plant several times a day.
I told that plant everything I thought of– about how I was pretty sure the bees were gossiping and how Claudia from my classroom could taste the flavors of my crayons even though I couldn’t.
About one week after Jim left, a month before the plant was supposed to do anything, it bloomed marvelously. The petals were a large, lush pink that turned our garden into a tropical oasis in the middle of a Texan desert.
Three days later, a second identical plant grew and bloomed.
Two weeks later, we had three of the same plant, all blossoming.
In a panic, we called Jim. He came by, kneeled into the soil, and asked if I had been talking to it.
“Yes, Jim, I have been,” I admitted, worried that I broke the plant.
He smiled, laughed, and told my parents, “Well, that explains it. The magic of friendship made it happen.”
. . . . .
Years later, Dad asked if I wanted to know the real reason the plant bloomed more than it should have.
“Nah, Dad,” I explained to my mathematically-minded father. “That’s not how magic works.”
