Tribute: The Little Grapefruit Plant

 One day a little boy had a grapefruit.

When he had finished eating it he put the seeds aside.

The little boy planted the seeds in a small pot and waited.

After a while a tiny seedling sprouted.

The seedling grew.

Two leaves became four and before long the seedling had become a sapling.

The little boy watered the sapling and delighted in it.

Then the little boy fell ill and died.

His parents cherished the sapling.

They watered it and fed it.

They desperately moved it from windowsill to windowsill to give it light and encourage it to grow.

But the little sapling refused to grow any bigger.

The boy’s parents re-potted the sapling. 

They carefully removed the dying leaves and kept the soil just so.

They searched in books and magazines for a way to help the little plant to thrive, but all in vain.

Year by the year the little sapling stayed the same.

Sometimes the parents looked in despair as the little sapling wilted.

Hurriedly they watered it, or sprayed it, or fed it.

The little sapling lingered.

Sometimes it faltered.

Sometimes it rallied.

But it never grew any bigger.

One day the boy’s parents parted company.

The boy’s father kept the sapling.

He took it with him whenever he moved house.

It was a part of him. 

The father constantly checked on the little plant.

He felt the soil, and touched the tiny, precious, shining leaves.

In time, the father grew old.

He became ill and died.

Still, the little sapling sat on the father’s windowsill.

It’s small curved leaves, grown from a seed touched by the hand of a small boy who died more than forty years ago.

©Angela Walker Angela and David 1979

In loving memory of my brother David Joseph Walker who would have turned 50 on 09/01/24 and my father Jeffery Charles Walker who died on 06/01/24. Together at last.