At the back of our house there was half a mu of vacant land. “It’s a pity to let it go to waste like that,” Mother said. “Since you are all so fond of peanuts, let us open it up and make it a peanut garden.” At that my brother, sister and I were all delighted and so were the young housemaids. And then some went to buy seeds, some began to dig up the ground and others watered it and, in a couple of months, we had a harvest!

“Let us have a harvest festival tonight to celebrate,” Mother suggested, “and ask Dad to join us for a taste of our fresh peanuts. What do you say?” We all agreed, of course. Mother cooked the peanuts in a variety of styles and told us to go to the garden for the celebration.

The weather was not very good that night but, to our great delight, even Father put in an appearance. “Do you like peanuts?” Father asked.

“Yes!” We all answered eagerly.

“But who can tell me what is good about peanuts?”.

“They taste very delicious,” my sister took the lead.

“They can be made into oil,” my elder brother followed.

“They are inexpensive,” I said. “Almost everyone can afford them and everyone enjoys eating them. I think that's what is good about peanuts.”

“In fact there are quantities of good points of peanuts,” Father said, “but one thing I do appreciate is particularly good about them. Unlike apples, peaches and pomegranates that hang their bright and beautiful fruits up on the branches, attracting your admiration, peanuts lie buried in the soil, waiting until they are ripe before letting people dig them up. And you can't tell whether they bear fruits or not just by their stems above ground.”

We all agreed and Mother nodded her head, too. “So you should try to be like the peanuts,” Father went on, “because they are neither grand nor beautiful, but useful.” “That is what I expect of you all.”

We stayed up late that night, eating all the peanuts Mother had cooked for us. But Father's words remained rooted in my mind till this day.

It was Christmastime, 1974. I was ten years old, but I was not looking forward to Christmas.

The previous spring, my mother and the man who was to become my stepfather had moved our family from rural Alabama to sunny Southern California. My little brother, Todd, and I were leaving behind our father and all of our extended family. This would be my first Christmas away from Alabama.

My elegant mother took to California like a swan to a royal lake. My athletic little brother enjoyed the climate that allowed him to be outdoors 11 months of the year.

I, however, was a fat, awkward child with a high-pitched voice and a heavy southern accent. My first day at my new school, I went to the front of my fourth-grade class to introduce myself. All I said was my name and where I was from. The class erupted in laughter, with jeers of “He talks funny.” It took the teacher two minutes to restore order, and she was angry at me for having caused a disruption.

I was so sad and disappointed that I went to a gas station after school and used the phone booth there to place a collect call to Granny Smith. I was going to ask her whether I could return to Alabama and live with her, and whether she would send me the money for a bus ticket home. But the line was busy, ad despite several attempts, I didn’t get through.

To make matters worse, my mother was always encouraging me to lose weight. She had been a fat child herself and saw weight loss as the key to my happiness.

Granny Smith was everything good about Christmas. Her language of love was food. She would spend weeks cooking for Christmas Eve, when all of her children and grandchildren would gather at her house, which was tiny and saturated with plain Christmas decorations. But to my childhood aesthetic, it was glorious.

She sewed new pajamas for all of her grandchildren. She searched for catalogs, newspaper advertisements, and stores all over the town to get us exactly the toy we had requested.

She was my solace. She was my resilience. She was magical.

I missed her desperately.

My three-year-old granddaughter, Tegan, went with her parents to a family gathering at the home of her other grandparents. Everyone was having a wonderful time visiting and catching up on all the latest family news.

Like most children, Tegan was having a good time playing with all the toys that were different from her own and that were kept for children to play with at her grandparents’ house. In particular, Tegan had found a little tea set and had begun pretending that she was having a tea party. She set up all the place settings and arranged her table with the great care and elegance that only a three-year-old can create. Meanwhile, her Daddy concentrated on conversation, and as he continued to chat with his family, Tegan would hand him a cup of "tea". Her Daddy, who always tries to participate in her games, would pause for a few seconds from his conversation, and say all the proper words and gestures for her tea party which would thrill Tegan. He would request two lumps of sugar. He would tell her how wonderful her tea tasted, and then he would continue his adult conversation with his family.

After going through this routine several times, her Daddy suddenly awoke to reality as he had a flash of concern in his mind: "She is only three years old, where is she getting this ‘tea’ that I've been dutifully drinking?" He quietly followed her, without her knowing, and his fears were growing stronger as he saw her turn and go through the bathroom door. Sure enough, there she was stretching up on her tippy toes reaching up to get her ‘tea’ water out of the container of water that grandpa used to soak (浸泡)his false teeth!