Transplant,
by Leonor Henríquez

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      I put on gloves and prepared my private operating room.

I was going to perform my first transplant.

Transplanting means moving an “organ” from the place where it is rooted and settling, into another, healthier place, with more chances of growing and living.

In my case, the recipient was broad and its sustenance nutritious.

Very carefully and speaking gently to my “patient”, as if it were open heart surgery, I took its fragile greenery in my hands and placed it on the chest of its new home.

A pot full of sun.

I watered my little plant, took off my gardening gloves and prayed that the transplant would be successful.

I wiped the sweat from my brow with a sudden reflection.

That little bush is me.

And like me, so many of us who left our country, our roots, for whatever reasons, to plant ourselves in new continents.

In my particular experience, I feel like I have been watered and fed with love and generosity in my new home. Here in Canada, my roots have settled, and my branches have grown.

Those spiritual arms that allow us to touch friends, siblings, family spread throughout the world, in a green and leafy embrace.

I don’t know anything about medicine or gardening, but I hope my transplanted bush blooms again.

In that other, my soul “transplant”, I can almost say that, although my root will always be a little sore, the new branches, determined and strong, those that greet the sky, give shelter to the birds, and make the wind whistle, they sustain me…

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