The Luck of the Irish

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

My shamrocks are not looking good. For several years they have lived in an aging terra cotta pot next to the windows which overlook my kitchen sink. But the heat wave of the last couple of weeks has been too much for them–as it has been in the West for many old-timers, both plant and human. Most of my plant’s leaves are dry and wrinkled around the edges, when only last month, they were a bright Irish green.

That shamrock plant is more than 50 years old. It was given to me by a close friend when she and her husband, newly married, worked a summer for the casinos in Reno, Nevada, to jump start their college tuition fund. I don’t remember what her husband did, but she spent her days in the Keno Lounge selling cards and supplying food and drink to mostly elderly gamblers who interested in a little entertainment but were not big risk-takers.

On a scorching summer afternoon, one of my friend’s customers won big—around $1500 dollars as I recall. It was a huge sum for a retiree living on a fixed income. The woman tried to tip my friend as was customary, but my friend was LDS and didn’t gamble, so she felt uncomfortable accepting such a reward. After the failure of considerable insistence on the part of this winner, the customer proposed a compromise. She pulled a lipstick tube out of her purse and dumped out its contents on the table. Inside was the single tube-root of a true Irish shamrock, cleverly concealed and smuggled out of the country as the possession of such a plant was against Ireland’s legal code. (Apparently, the small plants sold in grocery stores around St. Patrick’s Day are not TRUE shamrocks. So do not be deceived into believing that leprechauns might be spotted someday under their foliage.) The old woman dropped the root into my friend’s hand and said something to the effect that, “This shamrock’s brought me luck. I hope it will bring luck to you, too.”

Like clover, shamrocks are a kind of wild ground cover which love damp climates and are surprisingly hardy. A happy shamrock produces rich deep green leaves and delicate white flowers. In the care of my friend, her clump of shamrocks grew and thrived, eventually producing a planter so full of the cheerful greenery that she was able to split the plant and share half with me. Because of her gift, I also learned why a four-leaf shamrock is a symbol of good luck. In all these years, my plant has never produced a single four-leafed shamrock—such a rarity must surely be magic! However, I also discovered the power of the legend surrounding the shamrock did appear be real. Whenever I looked at my little plant, no matter what my mood, it made me smile.

Thirty years of happy shamrocks later, when my house in Kearns suffered a serious fire, my plant was sitting in a pot on the piano. The 2500 degree heat which swept through the house blew out windows and roasted everything in its path, including the fragile leaves and blooms of my cherished shamrock. There was not even a hint of a charred stem left. Had I not lost so many possessions vital to our family life, I might have felt even more bereft; instead, I simply moved the empty pot to a safe windowsill and added the small sadness of its loss to the back of my mind.

Occasionally, when I passed by the empty pot–and because I had been trained by a thrifty mother who was raised not to waste a drop of water in our scarce desert environment,–I’d dump the contents of a leftover glass of water into the plant’s container. One startling morning six or eight weeks later, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of tiny green sprout struggling to free itself from the damp earth around it. My shamrock had simply refused to give up. Three months beyond that, it had come back to life, filling the old, worn pot with it’s charming message of Irish luck.

Today, I’m not too worried about my shamrock’s current state. Once again I moved its planter to a safer spot. Time has taught me that my shamrock is far stronger than its current frail health implies. A little water, a little more moderate sun, and just a little Irish luck–I am certain it will thrive again. It’s a lesson worth remembering–in spite of each of our oft occurring bad days, we are all far stronger than we think.