by Shirley Love

Created on: October 01, 2010

Haleigh had been watching her grandmother with a great deal of interest.  “Why are you using your fingernail file on those seeds?” she finally asked.

“I am getting these pumpkin seeds ready for planting,” her grandmother explained.

“They absorb water much easier if they have been filed, and since these are magic pumpkin seeds, I think a little extra attention is in order.”

The plump old lady peered over the top of her glasses while awaiting a reaction from her one and only granddaughter.  Haleigh loved that little idiosyncrasy of her grandmother’s character.  She knew from past experience that Granny’s glasses were for seeing, but the act of peering over the top meant something unusual was about to happen.

“Granny, I am almost eleven now!  I don’t believe in magic seeds and the fairy-tale about Jack and the Beanstalk.”

“How sad!” her grandmother exclaimed.  “One should never get too old to stop believing in magic!  I still believe and I am a senior citizen!”

“Okay,” Haleigh relented, “what sort of magic can I expect from these seeds?”

It was the opening her grandmother had been waiting for.  “Just do what I tell you and you will see their magic appear right before your eyes in a few months.”

Haleigh decided to humor the old woman with the knowledge that it just might be fun.  There never seemed to be enough fun living with an elderly relative whose outlook on life was so different from her own.  She knew too well, the meaning of a generation gap.

She desperately missed her parents.  Her mom had lost her battle with cancer two years earlier, and her father was in Iraq.  She longed for the day he would return, but in the meantime she would stay with her grandmother.  She knew the old woman loved her, and she in return loved the sweet, white-haired woman.  But, face it, there was not much to do that she considered fun.  

She followed her Granny’s lead as they put the seeds to soak in warm water.

 “Why,” she wondered.

“I don’t rightly know, but that’s the way my mother did it, so that’s the way I do it.”

Haleigh rolled her eyes, then felt the flush of shame sweep over her as she realized that Granny had seen that gesture.  Thank God the old woman ignored it and continued with the project at hand.
 
“Let’s get

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>