Impossible Hope

When I was a child, my grandmother – the maternal one – arrived from England for a visit. And when she left, inside her suitcase, sandwiched between her dresses and nighties was a layer of cuttings. Being an avid gardener, my grandmother wanted to take home some samples of the exotic plants she’d discovered in our Queensland garden.

There was one problem: it was illegal to take plant material out of our country. Or maybe I’ve got that wrong. Could it have been against the law to bring plants into England because I can’t see why the Australian government would worry about pests and diseases exiting our country? Anyway, my grandmother’s cutting collection was a secret one. Would she get caught with her smuggled goods? Some people might insist that my memory is incorrect. I was only a child at the time, so I’ve got it wrong. My grandmother didn’t do anything that she shouldn’t, and maybe she didn’t. But this is how I remember it.

Fortunately, no one arrested my grandmother on her arrival in London. But sadly, all the cuttings, which she had snipped and then wrapped with care in damp tissues, didn’t survive. Once my grandmother had transplanted them into the English soil, they protested: where was their hot Australian sun?

I wonder: why did my grandmother take those little cuttings home with her? What made her do it? Being a gardener, she must have known that the chances of survival were low. Did she love those exotically different plants? Did she have hope? Because sometimes unexpected things do happen.

Hope makes us do what sounds impossible. I know this. When I was a bit older than I was at the time of the cutting incident, our school science class studied the development of chickens. We placed eggs in an incubator and then impatiently waited for them to hatch. Eventually, all the eggs cracked, and tiny damp feathery bundles of life emerged. We touched and observed and made notes. We smiled.

And then when we’d learnt all that was required, our teacher said, “Who would like to take a chick home?” I wanted to. A lot. I wanted a chick so much that I ignored the teacher’s next words, “You’ll need a lamp to keep the chicks warm. And your parents’ permission.”

That next afternoon, I climbed aboard the school bus with a tiny fluffy chick secured in a box, holding it tightly all the way home. My heart was beating fast with excitement and a touch of fear. What would my parents say when they saw my chick? The first words they said were,  “How are you going to keep it alive? It needs warmth. And where will it live?” We didn’t have a backyard because we lived four floors up in an apartment. My mother shook her head and said I’d have to return the chick to school the next day.

That night, I placed the chick in a cardboard grocery box at the bottom of my wardrobe. The following morning, my heart heavy, I went to collect it to take it back to school. But it was too late. The chick was dead, and it was my fault. The sheltered spot in my cupboard hadn’t been warm enough.

Why did I think I could raise a chick without a lamp? What made me take it home? Hope. My child’s heart yearned to have a chick to love. I wanted what the girls with gardens had. I hoped my chick would survive.

Hot climate Australian plants were never intended to live in the cold English soil. And chicks aren’t designed to live in cold wardrobes, four stories up.

And sons who don’t have enough lung tissue for breathing aren’t meant to live. But still, I hoped.

Hope never dies. And neither does love.

Photo by Meg Kannan on Unsplash