McNeeley Ann

When I think of my grandfather, I think of his garden.

Rows planted each spring in the soil by hand, grown by prayer, never fertilizer. No special equipment nor magic touch. Just faith, simple, trustworthy, true, which brought plentiful harvests, plucked from the ground of his hometown, canned and faithfully distributed to the community. 

Just faith brought boxes of zucchini, cabbages, potatoes, okra driven across state lines in the hot summer months. Only after the lot was distributed to the homes of his children and grandchildren did the work of his hands find its way to his own table. 

Just faith brought forth award-worthy cabbage, soon to become my mother’s pie and grandmother’s famous eleven a.m. breakfasts. Just faith brought string beans, the ones I first learned to snap on the beige carpet, cooked into dinners we shared. 

Just faith brought record tomatoes, transported all the way to the salty air of Hilton Head where my grandmother fried them to perfection. Tomatoes sprinkled with salt for breakfast and spoken of—years later—all the way over the Atlantic Ocean. “None of these compare to my Papaw’s,” I said time after time. 

Just faith contented his mind during long hours of working his hands and on long walks, in his own town and the sandy shores of the beach. 

A stillness and simplicity, first awoken on the days spent growing up on a farm, long ago in the time one used to walk to your teachers’ house when the snow fell too deep for school.

A stillness and simplicity, that led him to walk into the wrong school (on purpose), the day he met my grandmother, to marry, work hard, build a family, and to return to his roots by planting his garden. 

My grandmother was known for collecting things—shells, angels, stories—but my grandfather collected by sowing his treasure in the earth. That food, grown by just faith, is not something we can keep on a shelf or preserve in a photo book. Instead, it was given away. It was treasure that nourished us, passed between us in prepared dishes on holidays, and given to those in need. Though we cannot see it, it lives in a bit of us all.

Just faith hand grew a legacy. 

The last time I ever saw my grandfather, he wanted a cantaloupe. A simple thing, not remarkable by the world’s standards, not able to be kept or collected, but something from the earth we shared together. 

As my grandfather worked the ground, we learn to work our own gardens. Like him, we plant, we pray, we harvest. And that which we take, give, and pass between each other, gives life and strengthens us. It reminds us nothing exists without faith. And little is enjoyed without the stillness and simplicity of home and what made us, nurtured us, and sustained us.

One day, before I grow old, I will plant a garden of my own. I will pray for the rain, knowing the harvest is promised. I will give my own children boxes of tomatoes and teach my own granddaughter how to snap string beans. And like my grandfather, I will strive to give to others before the food reaches my own table. 

In the rows of my own garden, I will know the stillness of simplicity of home.

Written in memory of my papaw, Virgil “Spec” Moore (1933 – 2024).