Fifty years ago, our mothers' bitter estrangement divided us daughters. But after I expressed sympathy over her mother's death, my cousin mailed me a sprig of an aloe vera plant as a peace offering. Our shared great-grandmother had carried the original plant when she fled Lithuania for America in 1920. She gave plant cuttings to her growing family. My mother's section died. For a while, the cutting my cousin sent me seemed like it would die, too — but then, a green shoot bloomed. My cousin and I reunited to celebrate; our branch of the family tree will regenerate. — Melanie Chartoff
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