by B J Abel

Created on: February 22, 2009   Last Updated: March 01, 2009

Divine Intervention

When I was a child my mother used to pine and toil over her vegetable garden. Many weekends spent pulling the endless weeds and making kingdoms for them that inevitably were rejected by the vegetables.

For the longest time I thought tomatoes were supposed to be green and the size of a marble. I pondered how we were so lucky to get cucumbers already in pickle form. This perception was changed as I traveled with my family to friends and relative's houses only to see normal gardens, containing the vegetables I saw in grocery stores and TV. This truly confused me as to why our garden produced Alice in Wonderland sized vegetables.

Too my mistake I often asked my mother, "Why are your vegetables so small." Only to get the stare usually reserved for when I snuck a cookie or extra piece of bread at the Sunday diner.

One relatives Garden, which was always a magical place to visit, was my Uncle Henry's. He was a priest and had a huge vegetable garden he kept on the church grounds. Whenever we would visit I would spend hours in and around the garden and delight to help pick the fresh delights for the evenings dinner. The smells of his house were of fresh greens, and always and undertone of his favorite coffee freshly ground. I used to hear my Uncle giving my mother advice for her garden. He was a soft-spoken man and usually had a divine reference when explaining his plush offerings and endless growth.

My uncle would visit us from time to time and spent a week or two at our house. I noticed on one of these subsequent visits that my mother's garden started looking a little more respectable. Every time he would visit and then a few weeks after the tomatoes were a little brighter, and the cucumbers a little bigger. Only to quickly fizzle back the embarrassment we were used too.

As I grew older I noticed this strange occurrence more often and would anticipate his visits to mentally document this anomaly that kept happening. As other 12 year olds would get excited for a more practical things I would park a lawn chair by the garden during and after Henry's visits only to see more and more of the same. The garden would flourish with his mere presence. After many attempts my mother finally noticed the happening and started contemplating what was happening.

The one thing my Uncle always did was Pray every morning (before the rest of us were even awake) and read scripture to one of his freshly roasted cups of coffee. We would always know due to the aroma that

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