My wife and I usually don’t keep houseplants. But after I was told I had cancer I wanted to be around some life. When my friend Mitch gave me a lucky bamboo plant in a bowl, we decided to place the plant next to the living room window across from the couch.

I told Hannah I wanted to care for the plant myself. When it didn’t immediately turn yellow or brown or lose all of its leaves, I was pleasantly surprised. Tending to the plant gave me a sense of achievement at a time when I sometimes felt useless. As a physician, I was used to being the one who provided care, not the one who received it. Watering the plant taught me I could still be a caregiver. 

Over the next few months, I recovered from surgery and completed the first round of chemotherapy (化疗). Even after I returned to work, I continued to care for the plant. Soon, it had nearly doubled in height and its leaves were shiny and lush. Both the tree and I were thriving.

Then, mysteriously, it began to show signs of stress. No matter what I did, the leaves kept browning and dropping to the floor. I grew more and more frustrated and uneasy.

“I can’t even care for a simple plant!” I yelled. “I’m failing!” I couldn’t shake the feeling that the plant had become a symbol of my own health. I realized I had wrongly connected my careful nurturing of the plant — something over which I had at least some control — with my own survival — something over which I had no control.

When my tumor (肿瘤) returned, it would not be because of any failure on my part. As my anxiety decreased, I began to research how to heal the plant. After moving it under a sunny window, we both began to thrive again.

Whenever I look at the tree in its new pot, I think of Mitch and all the people who supported me. If the plant outlives me, I hope it will comfort Hannah and remind her that our large community will continue to nurture her after I am gone.

Getting to Antarctica is not easy. The few who are lucky enough to visit this most mysterious continent do so by ships. To reach Antarctica, ships must pass through a notoriously violent area of ocean called the Drake Passage, considered to be the roughest stretch of sea on the planet.

Walls of water thirty, sometimes forty feet high continually crashed about our ship for two solid days. We would hold on to a rope inside the ship while being violently tipped to one extreme side, then to the other, and then back again. My daughter Claire and I were as mentally prepared as we could be.

About two and a half days after entering the Drake Passage, the waters calmed. Soon, we noticed small black spots on nearby pieces of floating ice. Emperor penguins! Then, we began the two-mile hike over the ice to the penguin colony. Within several hundred yards, little clusters of emperors, perhaps ten or so at a time, greeted us, sliding on their bellies and making their wonderful noises, sort of a nasally squeal.

One day two adult emperors with their three chicks in-tow approached Claire, who was resting on the ice. They left the chicks with her, as if she were the babysitter. Twenty minutes later they returned to collect the chicks. And I will never forget the penguin that, when I jokingly asked which way back to the helicopters, pointed a wing in the correct direction. Every night aboard our safe and warm ship, we thought about what it takes to survive in Antarctica, an incredibly harsh place.

But each day on the ice, we also thought about the Drake passage, that monstrous body of water we had to endure to get where we were. Over the course of our visit, we came to respect the power of that sea. We still talk about the penguins, as I’m sure we always will. But we talk about the Drake too. Both experiences were unforgettable, and one would not have bee possible without the other.

At 22, I’d been working as a zookeeper at Perth Zoo for just over a year. I’d been working with crocodiles, but I’d always loved elephants. They were such intelligent animals. So, as soon as the job came up to care for them, I jumped at the opportunity.

The pair, Tricia and Tanya, both aged around 14, were wary (警惕的) of me at first. They even started roaring at me on the first night I locked them up in their enclosure (圈占地), and Tricia tried to pin me against a wall! But I’d spent long enough working with animals to know you should never show any weakness. “I’m not afraid of you two,” I told them in a loud voice. Over the following weeks, they started warming to me, so I introduced some games. I’d get them to run after me around the yard, screaming at the top of their lungs. I’d also hide from them in the blind spot directly behind their ears. Tricia turned out to be a real gentle giant. Soon every time I walked into the enclosure, she’d be sniffing (嗅) me all over, flapping her ears and trying to pull me close with her trunk. We’d formed a close bond.

It was hard saying goodbye when my wife and I moved to Darwin. “I’ll miss you,” I told them, rubbing their trunks. Years passed and I worked with a lot of different animals in wildlife parks. But I never forgot about Tricia and Tanya.

When I turned 72, my family decided to book a breakfast with the elephants at Perth Zoo for a family celebration. “You wouldn’t believe it, but Tricia’s still there,” my brother-in-law told me. “She’ll be celebrating her 60th birthday!” More than four decades had passed since I worked with Tricia. I wondered if she’d remember me. I was excited when we left our home in Bakers Hill, WA, for the special breakfast. My brother-in-law had told them about our history, so Tricia’s keeper, Kirsty, invited me into the enclosure. I got teary when I saw her. “Happy birthday! Do you miss me?” I asked. I was overjoyed when Tricia started flapping her ears and sniffing me all over. It felt like no time had passed.

Then Tricia started urinating (小便). “Now that’s a sure sign she remembers you,” Kirsty said, “When they urinate, they’re greeting you, so it’s pretty special to see that.”