To Be A Child

By Gary Bernard

To be a child is to explore, is to ponder, is to experiment, is to enjoy.
One day in May of 1955, I found a packet of zinnia seeds while I was exploring inside our garage. I sat down on a cardboard box filled with LIFE magazines and looked at the pictures on the front of the packet. It was full of wonderful red and yellow zinnias. I turned the packet and read the instructions.It said to plant two or three seeds two or three inches into the ground, cover it, water, and let them grow.
It was Thursday afternoon and it was beginning to get dark. I put the packet down in a place I would find it the next day and went into the house to eat my mother's Thursday dinner:macaroni and cheese. That night, lying in my bed, listening to the crickets, maybe a million of them, I planned my zinnia garden.
Friday, when I got home from school, I went into the garage to reread my packet of zinnias. It was then I decided to plant the zinnias next to the garage between our house and our neighbor's, Mr. Celosi. That way, nobody could bother me and my zinnias.
Saturday, I woke up early, dug my trenches and planted my seeds precisely as I was instructed, and then I watered my garden and went off to play.
Sunday, there were no flowers. Not even anything peeking out of the ground. I talked to my mother with great concern. She told me to be patient and keep watering. Patience was not one of my virtues. The first plant life in my garden were weeds. And then more weeds. But after a week of toil, my zinnias began to grow. And they were beautiful and they were big, so big that my heart opened up and my soul - my eight year old soul, just sat back in an old rocking chair and sighed and rocked and sighed again.