Planting Memories

Olly Mann battles to keep a family heirloom alive, with some help from his in-laws

“IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANT FROM GRANDMA’S FLAT?”. My uncle, texting me, last week.

His mum had passed away the week before; aged 96, in a hospice, completely compos mentis, indefatigable as ever. He’d begun the painful yet necessary task of sorting through her belongings. Dividing them into the familiar post-mortem piles: Retain, Sell, Donate.

I required zero thinking time. Yes, I would like her aloe vera plant, please. In the orange pot, you know the one? To the left of the porch. Nothing special to look at.

Here’s why. Sometime around 1975, Grandma received this plant as a gift. It came courtesy of the local butcher in recognition of her loyal custom. A gesture. A knick-knack. It could, I suppose, just as likely have been a calendar, or a fountain pen, or a box of biscuits. But it just happened to be a pleasantish pot plant, which Grandma, who always had green fingers, appreciated and placed in her doorway.

Five years later, my mum married the butcher’s son. And had me.

When my father’s mother died in 1993, Grandma revealed to me how this particular plant was different to the dozens of others she had in her home. How this one had history. It was, she suggested, a living, prospering embodiment of the relationship that existed between the two sides of my family. As, indeed, was I.