Nicholas: The Gardener

From the day Nicholas was born, he had opinions.

Strong opinions.

He walked to the beat of his own drum before he could walk at all.

He was confident, direct, and completely unafraid to tell me—or complete strangers—exactly what he thought.

While some children seek approval, Nicholas seemed perfectly comfortable being Nicholas.

As a parent, that can be both wonderful and terrifying.

When he was younger, his creativity poured into art. He could spend hours drawing and creating. Eventually, that passion evolved into something else.

Baseball.

Today, at sixteen years old and heading into his junior year of high school, he approaches pitching with a level of focus that amazes me.

He works hard.

Really hard.

In school, he never chooses the easy road. Honors classes. AP classes. Challenging coursework. If there is a difficult path available, he somehow finds it and willingly signs up.

What impresses me most is not his intelligence.

It’s his composure.

He remains remarkably calm under pressure. While I am often operating at one hundred miles an hour, Nicholas is steady. Focused. Stoic.

But what surprises me most has nothing to do with baseball or academics.

It’s his garden.

I have never had a green thumb. I can kill plants that seem impossible to kill.

Meanwhile, Nicholas has transformed our backyard into something that reminds me of my favorite childhood book, Willie’s Garden.

Green onions.

Beans.

Kale.

Peppers.

Sunflowers.

Soon, pumpkins.

While I rush from one thing to the next, he spends hours outside patiently tending the soil, watering plants, pulling weeds, and nurturing life.

The gardenias bloom because of him.

The sunflowers stand tall because of him.

The garden has become his masterpiece.

When I watch him outside, covered in dirt and completely content, I am reminded how different our gifts can be—even within the same family.

I could never teach him to love gardening because I don’t understand it myself.

Yet there he is, thriving in a world that comes naturally to him.

Parenthood has taught me many lessons, but one of the greatest is this:

Our children do not belong to us.

They are entrusted to us for a season.

We guide them. Protect them. Cheer for them.

Then one day we realize they were never becoming us.

They were becoming themselves.

And if we’re lucky, we get a front-row seat to watch it happen.

I am incredibly lucky.

Every day, I stand in awe of the young man Nicholas is becoming.