The Garden in My Backyard

My parents put the home I grew up in on the market yesterday.

Looking through the listing pictures, I saw a house full of memories but with empty rooms, empty halls, empty stairs, and empty stools. But not all of it looked different. While it, too, was empty, the garden in my backyard was still there. Seeing a picture of this garden reminded me of a Chinese Proverb,

"Life begins the day you start a garden."

In the backyard, for 41 years, my father kept a garden. As I have sat here and thought about it tonight, life is a lot like this garden backyard of my childhood home. On day one, my father planted a seed that germinated and produced an abundance of food for a family. Have you ever planted a seed and watched it grow? As the gardener, my father was free to create the imaginable. It was a place where he cultivated a vision, resources, goals, passions, and honestly anything he dreamed.

We all know when you want to plant a garden, it is more than just throwing seeds around willy-nilly and hoping for the best. No, to do it right, you have to create a vision. One must ask, what type of garden do you want, what is the garden's purpose, and how do you wish to lay it out.

From my father, I have learned that the same is true for your life; one should also have a vision and mission to set out towards. What kind of life do you want to have? Do you have a mission? What do you want to achieve out of life? What do you want to do, have, and experience? Those who don't create a vision for themselves are only walking into an overgrown garden. One full of weeds they cannot stand to look at and bears no fruit nor vegetables.

You might dream of planting tomatoes, pumpkins, strawberries, green beans, sweet corn, zucchini, cucumbers, the list can go on and on. In reality, though, you need to trim down the list to what is most vital for you and your family. With limited space, there is no way to grow everything at once. Otherwise, it will become unmanageable.

You can start life with a list of everything imaginable you want to do, but you need to prioritize, for there is not enough time in the day, a week, a year, a lifetime to complete it all. Ask yourself, what is most important? You cannot concentrate on everything at once; otherwise, you are cable of missing the most important things out of life. Plant the most important seeds in the first year that will bear the vital needs. Then, the next year and year after year, you can try planting different seeds. But don't grow too many things at the same time.

No matter what you plant in your garden, nothing will grow unless the soil is healthy. My father spent days, months, and years putting energy and expense into improving the garden's soil to turn it healthy, prosperous, and long-lasting. As in life, this process can take years, but a strong foundation will allow the garden to yield a more vigorous crop for the foreseeable future. But with fertile soil and a strong foundation, one's vision, dreams, and goals can significantly improve and lead to a more productive life.

As previously stated, it is imperative to prioritize what you are planting in your garden. Many people take a look at their lives and, upon reflection, do not like what they have sowed. The answer to this is simple; they planted the wrong seed. Ensure you ask yourself what you want and make sure you are planting the right seeds in life to obtain those results.

Many factors determine what can grow in your garden. Different plants require different environments. Even with our own lives, our environments that we surround ourselves with have an enormous impact on whether you will achieve the goals and dreams we set out for ourselves. Depending on the above factors, many will easily accomplish some goals, while others will take much longer. Be patient, wait for the results change doest not happen overnight.

The biggest takeaway for me is that you are the gardener; you control your destiny. For 41 years, my father kept the garden in my back yard free from deer, rabbits, and pests that munched away at his carefully planted crops. He even built a fence, which was the boundary that kept the naysayers, interruptions, and distractions out.

Like the healthy soil that the plants in my dad's garden sprouted for 41 years, his home was the ground that grew life. As with life, seeds start small and require genuine love, dedication, and care to grow strong and sprout life of their own. Caring and nurturing is precisely what happened in my childhood home for 41 years.

Although this summer he has prepared the soil and planted the last seeds, there is still a lot of work ahead. The garden in his backyard still requires lots of attention, while his goals, dreams, and passions have grown into three children and six grandchildren, who will always require constant tending throughout the years. A gardener cannot just stop after sowing the seeds. But if there is one thing I have learned from the garden in my back yard and my father. All you `can do is create the best possible conditions for your garden. Years ago, he planted a seed. He gave those seeds the care and attention they needed. Then he put his trust in that nature will take care of the rest.

With hard work, a garden will produce a crop ready to pick and feed a family. Like our lives, reasonable goals, dreams, and visions will provide multiple rewards as my father did over the years. Now he sets to retire with his love by his side, financial security, good relationships, many fond memories, and adventures with many more ahead.

So, I ask you. What does your garden look like? What seeds are you sowing? What steps will you take to tend your garden in life to live your best life?