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Children and gardening can have many interesting outcomes. Though I still very young myself, I have watched my nieces and nephews and younger siblings grow up around me. For years I have been the chosen babysitter and in-family psychologist (without a degree of course, in the process of attaining that). I have witnessed them battle through childhood brawls on the playground, nit pick at one another on long car rides, try to understand what was happening and why when their parents divorced, and then still manage that horrible time in everyone's life called puberty and everything that it comes with. The youngest is now entering middle school to struggle with hormones and grades that matter.

A few years ago, my oldest nephew and little sister entered high school. Jaidon involved himself in cars, baseball, hunting and fishing. Shadow spent most of her time with friends, choosing to exclude herself from extracurricular activities. A year after the beginning of high school, my youngest little sister was diagnosed with cancer, at this time I just turned 17. When her doctors gave up, and her treatments seemed not to be helping, I decided to begin researching alternative treatments to help her. I didn't just want to find an answer to her tumor but also to the depression that came with the illness.

Shadow took an expressed interest in my quests and began to look into alternative faiths and practices than our family had searched out. As I found herbal options and homeopathic treatments that could be tried without harming her, I began to wonder whether Missy would want to help me in the experimentation of her recovery. Soon, both Shadow and Missy were helping me to grow herbs and make teas and steams for the household. Many people also suggested that we add a form of concentrated energy that held no religious entity bias. I began to meditate, sending my good hopes and positive energy in Missy's direction. Perhaps shadow followed suite, I don't know, but this summer, in a follow up MRI, Missy's astonished doctor informed us of an event that was nothing short of a miracle. Missy's tumor had started to naturally shrink in size. Today, I hold more value in gardening your own natural herbs to homeopathic remedies than I have ever held in any pharmaceutical.

Thanks to Shadow and Missy, I have found a healthy alternative to medicine. The ancient Pagans of Europe, and the Indians of early America didn't use today's medicine, they used herbs, so it must work, right?

Learn more about this author, Echo Sankey.
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