A culmination of many years of bullying, it first hit me six years ago. I suffered from extreme OCD

On the sill of our kitchen window, on a soggy paper plate in a blue plant pot, a cactus plant grows. Its thin, tall spikes don’t draw attention to themselves — they are small and inconspicuous — yet the message they radiate is one of strength and patience.

While driving along the highway in France last year on the way back to our wet English homeland, the occupants of our Toyota Previa (yes, we’re Jewish!) requested a quick stop at a service station.

I was wandering about, eating my mother’s neatly packaged egg and pepper sandwiches and examining a homemade bee trap, when I noticed a small, brown potted plant thrown by the wayside. It looked sad and drooping, hardly inclined to survive, its leaves peeking out a mere inch from its pot.

When I asked my parents to take it back to England with us, they were surprised but willing. We wedged it neatly between my father’s bike and the back of the trunk, securing it with bike strings and repositioning it at each service stop. Every few hours I’d ask the “backseaters” to check on my plant.

A bet was made: Would my cactus survive the long journey home?

Remarkably, it did. It came home with me and sat outside, a small, sorry-looking green bulb.