The Bean Seedling

When my daughter was small, in Kindergarten, she came home from school one day with a little Styrofoam cup. In the cup was dirt, and I asked her, "What is this?" and she said "it is my bean seed! I am going to grow a bean stalk!"


I knew at that moment, that it was indeed to be my bean seed, and I took it from her, and placed it upon the kitchen windowsill, with promises to water it while she was at school every day.


Every day I would put some water into the cup, and eventually after a few days a little piece of green sprouted forth through the dirt. My daughter was thrilled to see her bean seed starting to grow. It filled my own heart with joy to see her happiness.


I got caught up in my every day life, as we so often do, and one day forgot about the little seedling. And as I walked through the kitchen I heard a small child's voice say with so much urgency "I'm thirsty!!!" I stopped dead in my tracks, as the hair on my arms raised with goose-flesh, and I pivoted on my heels. I turned towards the window sill and said "did you just talk to me?"


Tears ran down my cheeks as I realized I had forgotten to water the little seed, and even more than this, it had spoken to me. I was immediately humbled, and spent time with the seed, transferring it into a proper pot, and promising to never forget to water it again.


After some time the seedling was getting very big and long, and I knew it wanted to be transferred outside into my garden. So my daughter and I planted it next to the Sunflowers, in a patch of land which was also near our red grape vines. And as the summer continued to provide heat and light, the little seedling indeed became a huge stalk. It was not thick, but it was oh so very long. At the last measure, it had reached over 21 feet in length, and it wound it's way through the sunflowers and grape vines.


As summer began to wane, we picked up ripe big beans from the stalk, which my daughter took in to her teacher. Her teacher was shocked, and told me later in confidence that this was the first time a student had actually given her beans from a seedling. She had given her class seedlings every year, and no one in her years of teaching had nurtured them the way my daughter and I had. She was touched; I was humbled.


This was the first time a plant ever spoke to me aloud, with a voice I could hear. And it was also the day I realized just how beautiful and tenuous our connection with  nature is; we must be responsible to nature in all aspects. We must remember that life is precious, and we must treat it with the care of a mother.