Essay Winner: Let the Lessons Live On

By Shell Greenier
Published on March 13, 2009
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iStockphoto/Slawomir Jastrzebski

Looking Forward to Herbs: We were faced with many good choices as we read through the entries for our 20th anniversary essay contest, “Looking Forward to Herbs.” Our first-place winner, Shell Greenier’s “Let the Lessons Live On,” reminds us of the legacy we’ve inherited and the future we want to bequeath.

Shell, along with our second-place winner Gert Coleman and third-place winner Marguerite Dunne, will receive a selection of delightful herbal products from some of our favorite advertisers. Read the second- and third-place essays, plus excerpts from other essay entries, atwww.herbcompanion.com/essaycontest.

–The Editors

She leans over the flower box, 2 years old and chasing butterflies through the oasis that is our garden. The breeze plays at her pretty curls and sets them dancing in the sky behind her. This urban homestead is fairyland to her, a place to play and live out grand pirate adventures and princess romances.

Trailing vines of Malabar spinach and trees of papaya, pomegranate and ackee set the scene as rosemary and lavender stand guard and occasionally fill in as her fellow players. In her playful travels, she runs her hands through soft tufts of fennel and rubs tiny fingers across fragrant leaves of mint.

I sit beside her and teach her the magic of a seed that with a little love and nurturing will become a source of amazement. I take her by the hand and we walk together through the garden, learning together that there is more to life than what comes to us on store shelves and in glossy magazines.

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