Seeds in the Mail

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A month or so before we started dating, Jared offered to send me seeds in the mail. This surprised me, because I didn’t know many guys who planted gardens. I knew fewer who had an abundance of heirloom seeds on hand. When I thought about it, Jared was the only guy I’d ever talked to about how to build healthy compost, who had ever offered me garden seeds, and this felt as significant as asking me out. It was a thread of hope, at least. 

Seeds are hopeful things, Papa Larry will say. He lived in a time when seed catalogues came in the mail in the dead of winter, as welcome as the first crocus heads that precluded spring. He and my grandma spent a few years at a little church called Bethlehem Baptist outside Harrisburg, Missouri—the church Mrs. Thurston attended, whom I’ve written about before.

The first winter Sunday after the New Year may as well have been marked on the church calendar, along with Palm Sunday and Easter. Church members carried their seed catalogues with them to church that morning in brown parcels, along with their Bibles. There was a potluck that day following the service, always a potluck. Papa remembers how folks would gather around the potbelly stove, spread out their catalogues on the floor, and begin planning their spring gardens. He called it Bethlehem Baptist’s equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange, as men and women traded and bartered surplus seeds from last year, carefully counting and moving them with tweezers. Mrs. Thurston’s prized dahlia seeds were nearly fought over. Then the dust settled, the men spent the rest of the afternoon smoking, and the women knitting.

Papa told me this story over the phone one evening last fall. I’d called to ask what he thought about planting daffodil bulbs that would bloom in time for our wedding. He said it was worth a try, but I could tell he didn’t want to trample my excitement. The next day, I forked up a few clumps of his daffodils and split them, taking the extras down to the pond where we’ll be getting married if the March rains clear long enough. Since Nanny died, Papa has planted daffodil bulbs in her honor, so that April turns his front yard into a golden sea. I liked the thought of Nanny’s daffodils blooming on my wedding day, but as I write, the wedding is just over a month away. The earth is brown and only softened by harsh, winter rain. I need hope, and seeds and bulbs are hopeful things. 

At the point of planting them, planning a wedding felt like a tidal wave that hadn’t hit yet—like I should be doing Something but had no idea what that Something was. So, I did the most hopeful, useful thing I knew, and I planted bulbs. I didn’t have a dress or a veil or a wedding band, but Lord-willing, there would be daffodils. 

Later that week, I drove down to Arkansas, and Jared surprised me by ordering 60 more daffodil bulbs to plant hither and thither around what will be our home. October in Arkansas was bone dry, and Jared had to dig by jamming a post-hole digger into the ground. He said it was like trying to eat a watermelon through the rind. When we finished, we brushed the dirt from our clothes, stood back, and smiled about the hope of 60 daffodils welcoming us home someday. The ground was unforgiving, but bulbs are stout, and so is love.

Back to two winters ago, and my relationship with Jared was a wave that hadn’t fallen on the shore yet. I liked him but didn’t know what to do, so I said yes to what he offered me: seeds in the mail. You might think it was forward of him to ask. You might think it was foolish of us to plant bulbs in the drought of an Indian Summer. I happen to think these were the most hopeful things we could do. Seeds are like that—and, as a matter of fact, so is a marriage. 

“Love,” it says, “hopes all things” (1 Cor. 13:7).

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Please note that after next week, I’ll be taking a writing sabbatical for the months of March and April, as I’ll be getting married and getting settled (and probably planting some more seeds somewhere around our new home).