Because you shared your story with me, I feel like sharing with you one of mine.

We had some neighbors move in across the street. This is way back when I used to live with my parents. The new neighbors had two little girls and they were worried about this huge cactus in the middle of the yard. They didn’t want the girls to run into it while playing. They tried to dig it up, and failed miserably. It was just too big and too heavy. The next bright idea was to wrap a chain around the cactus and anchor it to the back of a truck and rip it out of the ground. The plant was absolutely gnarled. Clearly, the rot would set in and it should surely die. It seemed like they only got 3/4 of it out of the ground and the rest of it died in that spot.

We asked if we could have the remains. They said sure, why not. We dragged the massive cactus flesh pile across the street and made a vague attempt to plant it in the ground beside our house. Almost 20 years later it’s flourishing, and we have dozens of beautiful blooms every year. I watched over many years as the plant carefully grew new offshoots and discarded the mangled parts of itself from the chains. The specimen is truly stunning now. Thing is, that cactus probably lived there for years before they built the house, and they sold the house five years later. That was 15 years ago when they sold it.

That plant faced such adversity and then with almost 2 decades of neglect it looks like it was tended by the gods. Perhaps it was.