One Mother’s Day long ago, our daughter Laura dug up a corner of the yard and made a bed for tomato plants.  To encourage such a thoughtful gift, we bought three plants.  The largest plant stood two feet tall and already had one medium-sized green tomato.  There is nothing like buying a little insurance for those of us without green thumbs.  We bought a second, smaller plant with no tomatoes, but it did have several promising blossoms.  Almost as an afterthought, we bought one sturdy, four-inch plant with no blossoms, just so we could honestly say we actually did grow one plant.  Soon the green tomato on the largest plant turned red, and though it wasn’t very tasty, we ate it.  After producing this one measly tomato, that plant promptly withered. 

We don’t know much about growing tomatoes, but we have seen children who, when forced to overproduce at an early age, often seem to dry up on the vine when they get older.  Perhaps when children and tomatoes are forced to produce quickly, they have to draw on strength they need for roots and growth.  The second plant with all the promising blossoms ran a mediocre course.  By August a few tomatoes hung from its skinny branches.  Funny thing about that third plant, though.  It grew slowly, putting down deep roots first, and then it outstripped the second plant.  By the early days of autumn, it produced abundantly.

Our neighbors always had tomatoes in their yard:  giant bushy plants with fruit billowing in clumps and clusters all over the place.  They said the tomatoes they tried the first year didn’t do well at all, and so they had the soil analyzed.  That’s the trouble with both plants and children.  Not only do they have to be watered and weeded; we also have to figure out what they are absorbing through their roots.  At this point, our grown children are all producing at their own pace, and we are sometimes at a loss as to how to continue to nourish them.  Should we cultivate them a little more, try a different type of fertilizer, or simply stand by like a sturdy stake so that they can grab a little support now and then?  Sometimes it’s hard not to compare our tomatoes or our children with our neighbor’s.  Yet, the children who put down the deepest roots may take the longest to bear the best fruit.

And what about us?  Now that we’ve produced a few ripe tomatoes, do we let ourselves wither?  How do we find the energy to keep analyzing our soil, pulling the weeds and pouring on the water so that tomatoes, children, and even we can produce the most abundant fruit in the autumn of our lives?