Tick tock. Tick tock. It’s the sound of time passing you up. It’s the sound of memories being forgotten. It’s the sound of time. There are some things you may think that time just cannot change, but in some way, shape, or form time has changed it. Throughout history there have been select individuals who have beat time at its own game. These special people in everyone’s family are the ones that set up what we now know as “family traditions”. They may seem simple, or at times even stupid, but they have stood the test of time to tell a story, and mine is no different. It was a small garden, and I hated it.

The year was 2000, and I was ten at the time and I can, to this day, remember the first day my mother brought that horrid little potter into my room. “Make sure you take care, and water it everyday”, said my mother, as my attention was fixed onto the screen of TV playing a video game. I said okay, but I really wasn’t paying to much attention. The next day I started to water it, and do everything that’s necessary to make this thing be full of life, and I still didn’t understand the whole point of this thing.

A few weeks went by and the little flowers that I had been taking care of finally started to blossom, and I really felt accomplished. I kept that little garden for a while actually until time finally grasped the little flowers and killed them off one by one.

It was then that I finally just asked my Mom what this whole thing was about and she began to tell me a story of my Grandfather, on my mother’s side, and WWII. The Year was 1942 and my Grandfather was in an internment camp. He was still a young kid at the time, not more than seven years old, but he was thirsted into a place where he had no control. He and his mother tended to this little garden they were allowed to have, and with this little garden he learned how valuable life truly was, and it taught him a lot about life in general. Quality was just as important as having life itself. When he had my mother he gave her the same opportunity to learn the same lessons, and she in turn gave me the same opportunity.
I’m not to sure I got as much out of the garden as my mother and her father, but it did teach me that even the littlest things have a meaning, and its an honor to be included in a family tradition. Hopefully this one will stand the test of time and prove to be, timeless.