We would always lay on the hillside in a sea of shamrocks during those golden and evanescent grade-school summers. Fingers knit into the green stems, searching for the elusive four-leafed-clover. I became convinced it didn’t exist. We exchanged childish mythologies pertaining to that fourth leaf: it was a touch of fairie magic, an ingredient in a witches potion, or a portent for true love. He liked the last one best, and I remember him telling me he would give his true love an armful of shamrocks. We knew something important back then, but I only truly understood it four decades later. Too many people pick and discard countless shamrocks searching for their four-leaf-clover.