Where the Tamarind Tree Grows

We named you Tamarind because of your size and stature—small like the tree itself. Its delicate leaves and slender branches mirrored your dainty, fragile form. You arrived with a muddied tail and barely a breath in your lungs. We cleaned you gently, kissed your soft lamby head and wrapped your hours-old body in a newly donated fleecy jacket stitched with love.

And then we waited.
We hoped.
We prayed.

Our hands still warm from your heartbeat, our breath held tight—as if our silence could will you to stay.

Oh, Tamarind, how we hoped the toughness of the Tamarind tree—its quiet, stubborn resilience—might somehow become your own.

But the universe had other plans.

Your fierce will to live met the brutal truth of your birthweight: just over 2kg. A hard beginning for any lamb, let alone one orphaned and found by the side of the road. We will never know how or why you ended up there, but we’ll be forever grateful it was kindness that found you—and not the teeth of a wily fox.

When we first held you, you smelled of newness and earth. We noticed your eyelids were not quite formed. Your faraway gaze caused us to whisper, “Is she blind?” Your swollen mouth suggested something more—the silent presence of congenital anomalies we could not yet name.

Still, we fed you warm colostrum, rich with immunity and life. You drank with urgency and that fed our hope.

That night, we took you to bed. We cradled you close and told you coldness and indifference would never touch you again. We felt your tiny heart beat against our own.

You were warm.
We were warm.
And in that treasured moment, we were whole—if only for a flicker of time.

Then your cries came.

Soft and haunting, pitiful cries. Like those of a newborn human babe.

Was it your mumma you wanted? We held you close. Was it milk you wanted? We offered you some.

But your hunger was fading. Your breaths grew fast. Then shallow. Then still.

And just like that, you were gone.

Now it is we who cry.

Your time here was too short to show you how wonderful this world can be. But maybe, just maybe, it was just enough to feel kindness.

Maybe, just maybe, it was long enough to feel love.

That love is now buried with you—but your little fleecy jacket stays with us. Ready for the next wee orphan in need of the same warmth and love. A poignant reminder of you, sweet Tamarind, that lives on in every act of our care we offer.

And now, like those roots of the Tamarind tree reaching down into the soil, it is to the earth that you return.

A place we all return to. A reminder that we are here—each of us—exactly where needed, for exactly as long as we’re meant to be.

And sometimes, that “meant to be” is for a short-lived lamb named Tamarind.

Rest in peace, little one. You were loved.