Remembering Grampa

Grampa
By: Mrs. Wandishin

My Grandpa was a gardener. He loved to be outdoors with his shirt off and the sunshine on his back. He had a hairy back that used to make my sister and I giggle to touch. He had beautiful white hair and bright blue eyes that twinkled when he laughed.
Grandpa loved all flowers, but he loved his roses best. I would often accompany him on long tours of his yard and surrounding fields where he would point out the names of different roses that were growing everywhere! They were bright beautiful yellows, deep, crimson reds and snowy white with rainbows of pink and they smelled heavenly! I remember following him around his big old farm while he was working in the different flower beds. He would keep a running dialogue going about what he was doing and why. Often I would reach out my little kid hands and try to help and he would snap, “Don’t pull that! It’s not a weed!” I would snatch my hand back and just sit back on my heels and watch.
I remember one particular sunny, spring day my grampa and I were in his front yard weeding his daffodil bed. I was lolling on the grass on my stomach with my chin in my hands, lazily watching him feel around the stems of the daffodils for the nasty weeds that could choke the life out of the beautiful flowers. He was so efficient the way he pulled them and then smoothed the warm, brown soil back over the erupted earth.
As I lay there and watched the blue sky and white, puffy clouds sail across the sky, I noticed a bumble bee land on a nearby stump. Without even thinking about it, I jumped up and took my shoe off and raced to the stump ready to crush its life out with the heel of my shoe. As I raised my arm to take aim, I heard my grampa yell, “Stop!” My arm froze in midair and I turned to look at him.
He was staring at me with a look on his face that was a mixture of shock, surprise and yes, even horror! He said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill this bee before it stings me,” I replied, a little shakily now that I had seen his face and his reaction to this almost-murder!
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
I hesitated and replied quite honestly, “I don’t know?!”
He said, “Come over here and sit with me.” So I walked over and sat down beside him. He put his arm around me and said, “Now, sit here and watch the bee go about his business for a few minutes.” So I sat resting peacefully in the crook of his arm.
We watched that bee for 20 minutes. It took off from the stump and flew to a nearby crabapple tree. It drunk hungrily from the blossoms and then kind of drunkenly took off to fly to another crabapple tree.
My grandfather chuckled when I mentioned the bee looked like he had too much to drink and said, “He’s full of nectar!” It’s like sugar water to us. Everytime he leaves one tree the pollen on his feet go with him. When he lands on the next tree, he fertilizes it. It’s how fertilization takes place and trees grow those beautiful blossoms.”
I sat watching and thinking for a long time. Grampa had gone back to weeding his daffodils. I realized, lying there in the warm spring sun that he had just taught me a valuable life’s lesson. He taught me that everything has its place in life and that if you are patient, and wait and watch, you will see what that place is.
To this day, I try never to kill an insect when I see them. I will go out of my way to send a ladybug on her way when she has gotten lost and landed on my shoulder. I even send stinkbugs back outside, because in the back of my mind, I can still hear my grampa saying, “Wait, watch and let it go about its business and you will see why it is here on Earth!” So I do.