I have a potted plant purchased maybe thirty years ago for $1.25 at the local Woolworth's (remember them?). It is a palm tree with a little mop of fronds atop a spindly trunk. Being a somewhat haphazard potted-garden tender, as opposed to a somewhat potted garden tender, for one reason or another I had placed the pot at an angle atop a bed of pebbles. Thus, the trunk grew at an angle. As this bothered me I periodically shifted the pot. Between this shiftiness and the fact that the sun reaches it at yet another angle, the tree took on a look so bizarre that I resolved to dispose of what had become an embarrassing eyesore.

Then came the sprout. High up on the trunk a new bunch of fronds was shooting out at another angle. "New life," thought I. "Wait and see what happens."

What has happened is a major miracle. A whole new tree has sprouted from the base of the trunk, this one with fronds the length of the trunk, not concentrated at the top. The new tree is already about 3 feet high--a symbol of a newer, fuller second life. A symbol, too, of how the offspring may surpass the parent.