Planting Time

by Nikole Hahn
(Prescott, AZ)

“Wait!” Grandma Rinny held up her soil encrusted hand to silence Ellen. She rose from her knees and walked over to an old table leaning against the far wall of the patio. Grandpa Tom gave up organizing Grandma’s cluttered garden table. Open packets of seeds spewed over the chipped and peeling paint among rusted tools and open bags of Miracle Grow. “Ah, here it is!” She extracted an old tin box covered in more soil, bits of torn paper and rust spots.

“Grandma, I don’t see what that has to do with my situation!” Ellen waved the opened envelope. It took two attempts to tell the complete story. Grandma never listened.

“You’ll see! You’ll see!” Grandma laughed, waving the box and sitting down on a broken garden chair. She kept everything from show tickets to the Valentine’s card Ellen sent last month. Grandpa makes a point of watching, ‘Hoarders,’ every week hoping that Grandma would clean and throw away some of her precious mementoes. Ironically, she enjoys the show.

“Margie says she is done with God. She doesn’t get this Christian thing and she doesn’t want it. Next week, she is moving to another town, and it seems as if she is cutting off all contact with her Christian friends, including me!” Ellen wailed.

“I had an unsaved friend once. She liked to garden, too, but her family did not have the money or the care to cultivate their gardens. Esther and I were teenagers. We learned a lot from your great-grandmother. It seems green thumbs skip generations though.” Grandma removed the tin lid. Beneath the lid, yellowed papers, ticket stubs, and odds and ends were crammed in it.

Ellen let the remark go untouched. She hated gardening. There were spiders and crawly things moving around unseen. She shivered. “Grandma, Margie…”

“Here it is!” Grandma interrupted, and pulled out a yellowed package of sunflower seeds from the box. She handed it to Ellen.

“Seeds?” Has her grandma lost her mind all ready? Ellen felt exhausted after each visit with grandma. Mom encouraged her to visit often, but it usually took Ellen several attempts to complete a conversation with Grandma Rinny. Why did she keep trying? Obviously, Grandma Rinny found no interest in her life.

“Yes, seeds. My friend came over every day and we would plant lots and lots of sunflowers because your great-grandmother loved sunflowers. They did not take much to grow—just a little water and time. We had small ones and big mammoth ones. Those we extracted the seeds when they were ready, roasted them in the oven and spent many evenings on the porch eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells. We talked a lot about Jesus. She listened, but I doubted it sank any deeper than those sunflower seed shells. She talked a lot, too.” Grandma’s eyes drooped and her mouth sagged. “Then, one day she stopped coming over. I walked over to her house and she did not live there anymore.”

“What happened?” Ellen forgot her letter. It dropped between her feet.

“No one knows. Or no one would say. I made other friends and got married out of high school, but I never stopped praying for my friend’s Salvation. Then, one day in the mail I received that seed packet.” Grandma fished out a short brittle note and read it. “Dear Rinny, God works in mysterious ways. You always said that to me. I loved our time together and miss you horribly. My Dad moved us away and finally keeled over dead one day in the middle of a drinking bout. Mom left us with an aunt. I never saw mom again. Those summers of planting sunflowers with you were the best years of my life. You planted a seed. I want to explain that I did come to know your Jesus and now He’s my Jesus, too. Thank you. Love, Esther.” Grandma’s handkerchief was wet as she dabbed at her eyes.

“How long did it take?” Ellen inquired.

“Let’s see,” Grandma stared at the ceiling and her lips mouthed numbers as she calculated the years. “Grandpa and I have been married for 61 years. So it must have been 40 years. Yes, that’s it.”

“You prayed over Esther for 40 years?” Ellen inhaled sharply.

“Did you expect God to move in your time or His time? What are they teaching you at church nowadays? Do you go to those new fangled churches with TVs?” Grandma Rinny’s rare temper flared and died leaving only embers. “My point, dear child, is to let your friend move. Trust God to handle it. Don’t feel as if you have to control her movements or her decisions. You have no power. Only God has the power to alter hearts. You plant the seed and God will water it. Get me?”

“Got it.” Ellen felt better. She handed the seed packet back to Grandma, but Grandma pushed it away.

“I’ve carried it long enough. Now it’s your turn to plant seeds. Now about those roses over here…” Grandma put the lid back on the tin and shoved it back inside of the table.

Ellen stuffed Margie’s letter and the old seed packet into her purse. That seed packet was later framed and followed Ellen through graduations, marriage, and through the tough times when she nearly lost her child. Every night she remembered Margie in her prayers. When Ellen turned 50, a letter came in the mail. Margie was asking questions about God.