Growing a Boy, Growing the Children

...  there was another lesson that rapidly descended upon me I was completely unprepared for...


I was growing a boy in the garden.  Making straight lines, bent over planting seeds of corn and pumpkin.  Raking up hills for the zucchini and yellow squash starters.  Watering and weeding and protecting from pests.  These activities and others quickly led to conversations about life.  We talked about soil being life (I think the boy made this observation) and weeds being those ugly things that can choke us from spiritual things if we don't consistently monitor them and strive to keep our lives (soil) free from them.  Through the sweat stemming from the hot Missouri sun and humidity, we just talked about life.  I marveled that this simple experience was providing some ever-so-precious time with my son (and, those daughters who were inclined to join me from time to time) in a seemingly mundane activity.  We were growing closer, growing in understanding, growing our lives together. 

On the 30th day of August of 2004, on what I recorded as a "beautful, cool summer day" in my journal, I noted the following, "Upon commenting in Sunday school yesterday about teaching our children (following President Kimball’s counsel to plant a garden), I wrote down the words that had come to me. Jeanette revised it slightly to read:  “The seeds planted in the garden of his (Sumner’s) soul are greater than the seeds planted in the ground. And the harvest is eternal for the fruit will nourish him forever.”

And, what are the seeds?  Seeds of family, memory, life lessons, and spiritual things; seeds of a father who loves him and of a home at Dexter Woods.