Watching the Garden Grow

Just last week, we put in a garden. Or rather, we just planted things in every available spot, because the garden is tiny, and we need it for tomatoes, of course. Tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, and lettuce all went into the ground. We're still waiting on the potatoes, onions, spinach, beets, parsnips, dill and basil to show up from seeds. It's strange to look at those things and know that you'll be here before we have a chance to eat some of them. I had to give my credit card expiration date the other day, and by the time it expires, you'll have been here more than two months!

So we've been doing a lot of talking about all the things we want you to learn, the things we felt our parents did a good job with and the harder lessons we had to learn on our own that we'd like to teach you if we can. We certainly want you to be curious. That was something your Grandpa and Grandma Davis were great at, and I'm still trying to work out exactly how they did it. They both started out as teachers, so it certainly helped that they were always on the lookout for an opportunity to teach something, and teaching started well before school actually did! I don't ever remember being anything but fascinated by nature, and we did little experiments all the time. Can't wait to show you how charcoal briquettes will grow crystals or let you learn how plants "drink" by watching celery change colors from taking in water with food coloring. And I'll have to get all refreshed on planetary movement in order to duplicate your grandpa's incredible description of the solar system and lunar and solar eclipses. (It involved a flashlight, a grapefruit, a Nerf ball and a golf ball and more arms than you can imagine.) Sprouting a bean seed in a paper towel is just the beginning, I promise.

Your grandma was focused on compassion. She valued kindness and empathy beyond almost any other trait, and learning to respect and care for someone other than one's self was important to her. Especially if they were less fortunate. She didn't make us feel guilty for having so many opportunities, but she made sure we were always very aware that there were people all around us who didn't have as much as we had and not just in terms of material things. She reminded us that we went to school with children who didn't have as much love at home or as many aunts and uncles or parents who would take them to the library and that while we may judge someone with how they handle the circumstances of their lives, we never hold those circumstances themselves against them.

And hard work! Both of them know a lot about hard work, but they'd probably have sent you to your great-grandparents to learn about that. Your Grandpa Gene and Grandma Rosalie did more work before 9 a.m. than many people did all day, and they did it for the best reason that anyone can work: so that the people they loved could have things, including advantages and opportunities they never had. Grandma Rosalie would wash clothes, bake pies or rolls or casseroles to take to people with sick or dead family members, fix Grandpa Gene breakfast, start something for an evening meal and wash all the breakfast dishes by hand before she went off to work for the day. Grandpa Gene would feed cattle in all kinds of weather before going to work and, until he "retired," he'd spend his evenings and weekends doing harder physical labor than you'll probably ever have to do in your life: baling hay, resetting fence posts, digging ditches, or walking ridge lines looking for a cow that might be struggling to give birth.

That's why it's important to appreciate the adults in your life; even when you're frustrated with them, you need to remember that a big part of the reason that your grandpa and grandma and mom and dad get out of bed every day is to make sure that you have as many chances and as much help as you need to get started in life. When they were growing up, which wasn't that different from where and when I was growing up, no one had any money, so what set families apart, what made them strong and successful, was how hard they worked with what they had, how many opportunities they created for their children, and what set those children apart was how willing they were to take those hard-earned opportunities and do what was necessary to make something of them.

It's a little like the garden - the seed does a lot of work in the growing, and the sun and rain are like parents, bringing home what you need, but your grandma Tish would want you to know that all the generations of people before you were part of preparing the earth you were "planted" in, part of enriching it and building it up so that when the day came that you were finally planted in our family that you had the best chance possible. That's why adults get a little frustrated sometimes, too - they did a lot of work to prepare for you, to make things better, and on the one hand, all that was done to make sure you'd have chances they didn't, but on the other, they want to know that you know how much work it was and they want to know that you're not just going to take from the soil but be ready to do your own preparing too.

Being your mother is frightening for those very reasons - I not only have to do my very best to make sure you have a good place to grow, but I have to make sure that when you're grown up, you're smart enough and appreciative enough to do the same kind of work yourself. The first part is the easy part, because part of being a mother is wanting a good place for children to grow. The second part is harder and where I see so many mothers fail. It would be so easy to do too much for you, to make the place where you grow so free of weeds and problems and challenges that you'd shoot up fast without any opposition, but then you wouldn't be a very sturdy little plant. You'd have had it so easy that you'd not be ready to contribute back, to do the preparing part when it's your turn, and what you'd produce in life wouldn't be very strong or valuable because you wouldn't have grown strong from your own struggles. Your dad and I aren't just preparing you to grow for your own sake, but preparing you to give back, to be ready when the time comes to do the preparing for someone else.