Summer's Last Lesson

The summer I turned twelve, my father planted spinach in the garden patch behind the garage. Not lettuce, not tomatoes—spinach. He said it built character, though I suspected he just wanted me to eat my greens without complaint.

Old Barnaby, our golden retriever with a coat like sunshine, would lie beside me in the dirt while I watered those stubborn plants. He was my grandfather's dog originally, passed down like a pocket watch or a set of silverware. Some inheritances are heavier than others, but a dog's love is the kind that lightens you.

The day the lightning storm hit, I was harvesting spinach by the basketful. The sky turned purple, then black. Rain fell in sheets. I stood frozen, watching electricity crackle across the horizon like God's own fireworks display. Then I saw it—a fork of lightning struck the old oak tree, and down came a branch, straight through the roof of our above-ground pool.

My father stood on the porch, laughing. 'Well,' he called over the thunder, 'that's one way to drain it for winter.'

The pool never quite recovered. We patched the hole, but it always leaked after that. Still, we swam anyway, sloshing around in three feet of water, pretending we were ocean explorers instead of children in suburban Indiana.

Now, seventy years later, I grow spinach in my own garden. My granddaughter visits sometimes, sitting beside me in the dirt. She asks why I bother—why not buy it at the store like everyone else.

'Some things,' I tell her, 'take time to grow right. Including people.'

Old Barnaby's been gone forty years. My father's been gone twenty. But on summer evenings when thunder rolls through the valley, I still see that lightning, I still smell the rain on hot asphalt, I still feel the weight of a wet dog leaning against my leg, and I know—some leaks are worth patching, and some memories are worth keeping, even when they're not perfect anymore.

The spinach grows just fine, by the way. And I eat every leaf.