Compost Studios

In 1972, my sister Louise was planning a big adventure. A 24-year-old secretary, she had saved up a sizable amount of her modest income so that she could travel Europe for a month with her best friend. In the spring, she bought a set of Samsonsite luggage, and it came with a bonus gift, a little sprig of a miniature orange tree.

My sister Louise gave the orange tree to my mother Louise, who had a knack with houseplants. It grew from a six inch stick to several feet in height under my mother’s loving care. Much to our delight, it burst forth with sweet-smelling white flowers followed by oranges the size of walnuts. It seemed a bit magical, this tree, producing baby citrus fruit in our house.

When my parents moved from New York to Virginia, my mother managed to move the orange tree too, and it kept blooming in its new location in my mother Louise’s sunny kitchen. It was ten years old and thriving there in 1982 when my sister Louise died after a long battle with cancer.

It was twenty years old when my mother Louise died of cancer ten years later, in 1992. Still in the kitchen, it was a bittersweet reminder of the two Louises.

My husband, an avid gardener who shared a special bond with my mother, loaded the tree (and most of my mother’s other houseplants) up in his pickup and transported them to our home in Virginia, about 180 miles away. He pruned the little tree, occasionally fertilized it, treated it to a special citrus tree “cocktail” once or twice a year, and treasured the way its blossoms perfumed the air in the winter. When our children came along, they too delighted in the novelty of miniature oranges being produced at their house.

When the time came for us to move to Belgium, we gave away most of our houseplants, but we couldn’t possibly give away the tree that reminded us of the two Louises. The orange tree in its enormous white pot was driven 180 miles to western Virginia and put in the care of my big brother.

It was 2005, and the tree was now 33 years old.

Maybe in a stroke of what Buddhists refer to as “interbeing,” the tree remembered that my sister Louise had only been given 33 years on the planet.

Maybe it missed my mother.

Maybe it missed us.

Whatever the cause, despite my brother’s diligent care, the tree started dropping leaves and losing its vitality after we moved.

E-mails were exchanged between my husband, the master gardener in Belgium, and my brother, keeper of the family tree,  in Virginia. The Virginia Tech extension office was consulted for advice. My husband shared the recipe for the special "cocktail" my mother had fed the tree with. All sorts of actions were taken, and my brother and his wife were more than a little dismayed when they had to tell us that despite all their efforts, the tree had just died.

All that remained...

They moved the dead tree outdoors, under the watchful eyes of the statue of St. Francis, and my brother, who had saved some of the seeds from the last harvest of oranges, planted them in small pots and watched them sprout and grow. It was my family’s way of remembering my sister and my mother, of keeping them alive in our hearts.

The baby orange tree, grown from seed 

Maybe it was that act of faith.

Maybe it was a manifestation of our hope of one day seeing the two Louises again.

Maybe it was further evidence of “interbeing” and mystical connection between ancestors and future generations.

Whatever the cause, my brother and his wife witnessed a miracle on their front porch: the “dead” orange tree, now 36 years old, came back to life.

Somehow, out of all the dry brown wood and a long season of nothingness came new green leaves.

 A bit scraggly, but alive

Today the orange tree is once again under my husband’s TLC.

And the baby orange tree? My kids consider it their own.

See, not all family heirlooms are silver and gold--some are green and leafy and offer lessons in resilience.

I'm keeping faith that the tree, like our family, will bloom again and bear fruit.

May 9, 2008