Newsletter | Prompt
Delayed Gratification
Mmm Mondays News and Prompt #3
As an avid gardener, I am no stranger to delayed gratification. But like many lessons, it was learned long ago.
When still a small girl, I spent weekends with my grandparents. My grandfather was a man of few idle moments, except for his routine mid-day nap and each spring he would sow new seeds, move and tidy his plants and prepare the garden beds for that year’s growth.
As youngsters are known to do, I wanted to copy and and mimic his work, but as gardeners are known to do, he was hesitant to let unexperienced fingers intervene. And so, one weekend he created me my very own garden plot, and nestled inside a layer of straw, my very first strawberry plant, barely more than a fuzzy green leaf.
He charged me with the care and maintenance of that small plant, and over the spring and into the summer, it grew to many times it’s original size, and began to bud.
When those buds arrived I checked on them everyday, always with the same question.
Are they ready yet?
For many weeks, much to my disappointment, the answer was, “No.”
Finally the day came where beneath the perfectly shaped leaves sat a child-sized handful of…
