The little tomato plant that did die, and more on inadvertent gardening on the road.

September 28, Channahon.

Back in the spring, in a burst of gardening enthusiasm, I had bought a little tomato plant from an organic grower at a farmer's market in Mountain Home, Arkansas. In the next few weeks, that tomato plant earned the name "The Little plant That Wouldn't Die," thanks to repeated, albeit innocent, attempts on its life.
The little tomato plant refused to die. It refused to die even after I tortured it into fitting through a too-small scissor-made hole at the bottom of my plastic pot so that I could transform it into the much-touted upside-down tomato plant. It refused to die even after it rode at top speed at the end of a rope tied to the back of the motor home for over twenty miles in the pouring rain (remember spring?) It refused to die even after it endured a lapse in watering duties by Dylan, officially anointed the guardian of the tomato plant.
But it didn't survive Nicolas.
He yanked it by the leaves one day shortly after its last triumphant escape from our household's unconscious annihilation attempts. That was the last straw for the little tomato plant, it didn't make a comeback.
This story doesn't end here, though, for I kept the empty flower pot in hopes of seeing the little tomato plant resurrect from the damp earth (I dutifully watered it,) sad at its demise still, and a little miffed too, I admit, since it was supposed to be indestructible, after all.
That's when the real miracle happened.
About a month afterward a little shoot appeared in the bare pot and grew so incredibly fast it was riveting to see its progress every morning (and I was reminded once again of the blind force of life in all its infinite forms.) It was a tiny twig, and soon it sprouted two leaves: it was a maple tree. A maple tree growing right there in the ashes of the little tomato plant that did die but lived on, a little maple tree-in-becoming, just two leaves, beautifully defined, our little gardening miracle of life renewed.
Dylan loves to gather and plant seeds everywhere we go, no doubt he had put a little maple tree seed, those aery winged marvels, in the flower pot some time back.
The shoot grew on, two leaves at a time, then faced some challenges of its own. It was attacked by some mysterious fungus, and I applied a treatment and saved it, only a few weeks later I inadvertently parked the motor home on top of it while performing the daily leveling duties, and screamed in horror as I spotted its leaves under the wheel by the front door, scrambled into the driver's seat to move the trailer, shouting incoherently, Fridman and the kids watching my hysterics, mouth open. It survived with only bruises.
A few weeks later still, it was the heat wave that almost did it under, drying up all but one sole leaf, new shoots shriveled in mid-growth. All that stubborn growing, only one leaf left, and now after turning brownish it finally dropped last week.
The little tree is alive, it will sprout again next year, if all goes well - the little tomato plant living on in it, too.