Long before I was born, my grandparents moved into the house on Beechwood Avenue with their four young daughters. The girls slept in the cold attic, warmed in winter by hot bricks Grandma placed at the foot of their feather bed.
During the Great Depression, work was scarce. Grandpa dug ditches during the week, and on weekends, he and Grandma started a garden to grow their own food. Their large front yard had shade and fruit trees, with a water pump in the center. On one side, they planted vegetables and strawberries; on the other, flowers surrounded a statue.
The whole family worked to tend the garden. All summer, they enjoyed its bounty, and Grandma preserved the harvest for winter. As years passed and grandchildren arrived, the garden remained a source of joy and sustenance, even as it grew smaller with my grandparents' age.
One summer, when Grandpa was eighty-nine, he could only watch from his chair as the garden flourished. He passed away before the harvest. The following winter was lonely for Grandma. Come spring, she planted only a small garden, doubting she could manage more alone.
Early that summer, a gigantic swarm of bees descended into a hole in a tall tree in her yard. The sight and sound were frightening. Grandma considered hiring someone to remove them but decided to wait. The bees busied themselves, coming and going from their new hive, and soon she decided they were harmless and went about her life.
That summer, her little garden produced an astonishingly huge crop, puzzling the neighbors whose gardens struggled. When her brother Frank visited from Arizona, she served him food from her garden and told him about the bees. Frank explained that farmers in Arizona often hired beekeepers because bees pollinate crops and help them grow.
Grandma then realized the bees had pollinated her garden all summer. "So that's why my little garden had such a big crop!" she exclaimed. From then on, she believed that since Grandpa couldn't be there to help her that summer, he had sent the bees to take his place.