Earl’s Garden

It hadn’t been a particularly upsetting day,but I was down spirited after school that day.So down-spirited,in fact,that I was ready to burst into tears even though I was walking in a very public street.Trudging home,I reached the little patch of ground behind the chain wired fence that had some of the healthiest plants I had ever seen.I had been ‘eying’ this garden(eying in the very Ghanaian sense of the word,since my plants did not look nearly as good as these) and any gardener with half an interest in their plants will always be eying someone else’s more beautiful plants,but I digress.

The plants had been pretty small before,but today they just looked like giants.He had a post on the fence calling the garden’Just a mere garden’.Didn’t look like that today.I felt a little bit like Jack felt seeing the beanstalk,because I definitelyfelt tiny that day.There was usually nobody in that garden,and I had never seen the owner.Today,however,there was someone watering the plants(obviously someone had to have been doing that,I just never saw them).While I was still pretty far away,he looked over at me and said hi.Of course I wasn’t going to let the tiny little mood I was in stop me from saying hi back,especially if I got to meet the owner of the gorgeous tomato plants.We spent a few minutes chit-chatting,then I told him I had been ‘eying’ his gorgeous garden.He smiled and said,’This is my dad’s garden,I’m just taking care of it for him’.

Well that explained why I hadn’t been seeing anyone there.He went ahead and told me his dad had suffered a heart attack and couldn’t come home on his own yet.He was recuperating,but very slowly.I made all the usual sympathetic noises and said I hoped he got better.Then he asked,’Could you pray for him?’.I was surprised,and touched all at the same time.You see,I never said I was a christian,and I didn’t want to raise that topic with someone I had just met.I was touched because he asked,and it made me appreciate my health and relationship with my Father.Still tired but feeling  better,I walked on but he called me back and said,’His name is Earl’.I had forgotten to ask,but I did not forget to pray for him.Here’s to Earl,whose son talked with me a while,and reminded me of the privilege of being God’s daughter.I hope he comes home soon.And his garden is definitely not Just A Mere Garden.Here  are some shots from my camera.