Back when I was a young teenager, my Dad and I planted a skimpy garden in the 1/8-acre backyard of our small suburban house. The soil was parched— rain hadn’t fallen for months— so we weren’t sure anything would sprout. But lo and behold: after a few weeks of systematic watering and constant weed pulling, life emerged from the coffee-brown ground. Our crop wasn’t impressive: three sunflowers, two rows of carrots, and—Dad and I’s pride and joy—a single seven-foot stalk of corn with one ear. I and Dad, having watched the maize grow from a tiny green sprout, were delighted, and I was fascinated with the tiny ear. It was cradled in soft silks like a newborn baby in a blanket, and it was protected from the harsh sun and hot autumn air by a rough green husk. Every evening, after watering the garden, I would excitedly ask my mother, “Can you cook the corn soon?” I longed for the day when my family could taste the tiny masterpiece Dad and I had worked so hard to nurture.

“Soon,” she’d promise, working away in the kitchen. “Remind me.”

One afternoon, after a horseback riding lesson, I hurried into the backyard to catch my pet rabbit, which I let free-range each day. As always, I glanced at the garden as I stepped by. What I saw stopped me in my tracks.
Some rodent—presumably a squirrel or rat—had torn the protective husk off the tiny ear and had gnawed the tender kernels away, leaving nothing but the cob—the skeleton of all my hopes and dreams for the tiny garden.

“Oh no!” I burst into tears. Rushing to check on the other plants, I noticed every single seed of one sunflower had been eaten as well, but it was the loss of the maize’s ear that devastated me the most. Joining me outside, Dad shook his head in disappointment. He and I had worked so diligently to raise our miniscule garden to perfection, and now it was nothing but a mess of rodent-chewed shells of what used to be plants. Wiping my tears away with the back of my hand, I sniffed as my father uprooted and composted the destroyed sunflower and corn stalk.

I learned an important lesson that day. You can work long and hard, bolstering something until it is the epitome of perfection, yet it can still be wrecked. My Dad and I have long since grown and harvested from other gardens, but I’ll never forget that terrible day when the squirrels ate our first ear of corn.