Harry is my dear friend and “adopted brother” who is a master storyteller. He has many tales of his beloved “Nannar,” his mother’s mother, who doted on him as her only grandchild. I especially love his peach seed story and I use it often with clients when I’m illustrating a point. It goes something like this…
One day when he was about eight years old, Harry was visiting Nannar in her rural Virginia home. As usual, visits to Nannar included time in her kitchen and on this day they were enjoying the juicy goodness of a fresh summer peach. As the seed started to emerge through the plump peach Harry was eating, he got an idea.
“Can we plant this peach seed?” young Harry asked.
“Of course,” Nannar replied. “We’ll plant it in the back yard where we can watch it grow through the kitchen window.”
A great plan Harry thought, so off they went to plant the seed. A suitable spot was found and under Nannar’s watchful gaze, Harry dug a hole, deposited the seed, covered it with dirt and added water. “Now we wait,” Nannar said.
Just a few days later, Harry asked his grandmother if they could dig the seed up and see how it was doing.
“You don’t want to do that,” Nannar cautioned.
“But why not?” Harry countered. He was an inquisitive lad and as an only child, was used to getting his requests quickly met.
“You planted the seed and watered it,” Nannar said. “Now you must wait and let it grow. It’s started to sprout under the dirt and when it’s ready, the plant will poke through the ground and you’ll see it grow into a beautiful tree. We’ll eat peaches from that tree one day,” she said.
“But I want to check on it now and make sure,” a stubborn Harry replied.
“OK, but if you disturb the seed, it’ll stop growing,” the wise Nannar said. “You have to trust the seed is doing what it needs to even if you can’t see the progress.”
“I want to dig it up,” Harry said.
“OK,” replied Nannar. They went into the back yard and she supervised as a determined Harry carefully dug up the seed to discover it had indeed sprouted.
“Look! It’s growing!” Harry said.
“It was,” his grandmother countered. “Now it has stopped growing,” she said.
“I’ll just put it back and it’ll be fine,” Harry said.
“You can put it back in the ground, but it’s too late for this seed to grow,” Nannar said. “When you plant a seed, you must be patient, wait and trust the seed is doing what it needs to even if you can’t see it.”
“It’ll be fine,” Harry said as he replanted the delicate sprout. “We’ll have a peach tree soon!”
For weeks afterwards, Harry would visit Nannar and run to the back yard to check on the progress of his peach tree. He’d water the spot if it looked dry.
Nannar would observe this ritual with a smile and say, “You have to trust the process Harry. You can’t dig up the seed and expect to grow a tree.”
Of course Nannar was right, and the seed never grew.
Harry told me that for years later, he would be sitting with his grandmother in the kitchen and she’d motion out the window into the back yard and say, “That’s where your tree would have been if you’d given the seed time to grow. That tree could have produced thousands of peaches by now and hundreds of new trees could have come from that single seed. When you plant something, Harry, you have to nurture it, be patient and trust in the natural process.”
WOW. Using a simple example from nature, Nannar beautifully explained a powerful life lesson. I love this story.
I’ve often wondered how many times in my own life I’ve planted a “seed” only to have been impatient with the process and “dug it up” before it had time to grow properly? I’ve done that with relationships, jobs and countless projects over my lifetime. Wish I’d had Nannar to advise me. But thanks to Harry, I do have her wisdom.
What “seed” have you planted lately? Do you know how to nurture it while you practice patience and trust it will grow?
