[Faith-talk] Pumpkin Patch Kids

[Paul Smith]

Hello and greetings to most of you for the second time today.  This 
will be my only opportunity to present for you a Halloween 
contribution, and although not a Christian article in the technical 
sense of the word, I found it in such a publication, and hope you will 
enjoy the following.

For them, Halloween was all about hometown jack-o-lanterns.

October is usually a happy time for me--my grandchildren, Daniel and 
Carly, get all excited about Halloween.  They spend weeks beforehand 
discussing their costumes and dreaming of all that candy.  More than 
anything else, though, they love pumpkins.  And not just any pumpkins.  
They wanted the ones that grew in their great-aunt Margaret's yard.  I 
liked to joke that my sister Margaret had a soft spot for those 
kids--the compost pile in her backyard.  That's where the pumpkins 
grew.  And she and the kids tended to them, slipping an upside-down pie 
pan under each one so it wouldn't rot sitting on the ground.  Whenever 
I picked my grandchildren up and took them to visit Margaret, they'd 
barely say hello before bursting out into the yard to see what was 
going on in their "pumpkin patch." They harvested them and used the big 
ones to carve into jack-o-lanterns.

I didn't know how or why pumpkins grew in a compost heap, of all 
places.  Margaret never planted seeds.  Maybe she'd thrown an old 
pumpkin out there one year.  She had a green thumb, though.  She could 
have dug a hole, dropped in a worm and ended up growing a rosebush.  I 
envied her gardening skills.  If only I had inherited Margaret's 
abilities after she passed away.

What would my grandkids do that first October after my sister died? 
Halloween without Margaret's pumpkins, Lord? I prayed one night.  I 
wished there were some other way to make the day special to let Daniel 
and Carly know their great-aunt's spirit lived on.

Next day I went to visit the kids.  I can help them with their 
costumes, I thought.  That'll be something, at least.  "Hi!" I said, 
opening the door.

As soon as I walked in they said the quickest hello before shouting, 
"Grandma! Grandma! Come and see!"

"See what?"

"Just Come!" they said, grabbing my hands and dragging me with them.  
We went outside.  There, right on the side of the house, were half a 
dozen pumpkins.  All plump and orange, with vines trailing everywhere.  
Growing in a spot where nothing had ever been planted.

I said, "You know what Aunt Margaret would do if she were here ..." We 
all raced to the kitchen to get some pie pans.  The biggest and best 
got turned into jack-o'-lanterns.  The rest decorated the front porch.  
And they lasted for months, an autumn-long reminder for my two little 
pumpkin patch kids.

And there you have it for this guy's Halloween contribution which I 
trust brought back some nostalgic memories for you.  Until tomorrow in 
this space when, Lord willing the weekly Bible trivia game poem will be 
posted, then from the New Testament, may the God of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last 
days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul