Red gingham dress and barefoot, sitting by a hickory tree, she was busy as could be. I said, “Darling what are you doing in the dirt on your knees?” She said, “Daddy I’m planting vitamin seeds.”
I smiled and asked her where she found such seeds, and did she really think that they would grow?
She looked up with her three-year-old eyes and much to my surprise, held out a jar of special seeds, they were just the right size. The label read, “Vitamin C,” so I guess they were seeds in disguise. So we finished planting the vitamin seeds, kneeling by the hickory tree.
Some nifty years went by.
Now I wish I could see daughter again, sitting barefoot on her knees. She grew up like we knew she would, and then she moved away. And far too soon her momma died and that left her brothers and me. She relocated to Florida, to live in Paradise. And now I sit here wondering, does she often think of me?
She runs and swims, does Iron Woman too. Her home looks out on the ocean. Her yacht is harbored on the bay. But in her heart is there a hickory shaped hole, since my darling went away? And does she recall planting those seeds, as she sails from the quay?
Not long ago they say she caught a great amazing fish. It was a lovely day I’m sure. But none so lovely as this: that day, so many years ago, when we sat by the hickory tree, and in red gingham dress and barefoot toes, she planted Vitamin C.
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