N.C.I.S.

It's time for N.C.I.S. - no, not the TV show but a "Non-CI Snippet". The last time I wrote something unrelated to my hearing journey was one year ago, so I suppose it's OK to get a tad side-tracked.

My CI buddy Denise grew up on a farm. She knows all about such things as pullets and shares with such wonderful wisdom and whimsy. Maybe she was even a 4Her as a kid, won one of those ribbons at the county fair, or helped her mom with the canning. Did you, Denise?

Me? Well, I lived in the country for the first 8 years of my life. I do remember the dairy farms we would pass going to and from school every day, but I never milked a cow or held a pitchfork in my hand. My parents had a small vegetable garden at the far end of the house and I have a vague memory of seeing tomato plants, radishes, and rhubarb growing there. My interest in plants back then was practically nil, unless you count collecting seeds to glue on construction paper in art class. I was into swimming in Culvers Lake, exploring the woods that surrounded our house, climbing trees, and doing such environmentally irresponsible things as catching lightning bugs in a jar stuffed with grass and sealed with a lid I'd mutilated with an ice pick so that the little buggers could survive the night on my dresser.

Why am I writing about these memories? Because today I harvested my first pineapple and I'm as proud as punch!! I started the plant a few years ago from a discarded top but never really expected any produce. When my 3 strawberry plants yielded some juicy red morsels (generally half-eaten by birds before I could pick them), I began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this summer I'd see something more than boring green blades on my half-hearted Hawaiian experiment. And then it finally happened - - - a tiny bulbous thing instead of another leaf.

Did you know that it takes months and months and months for a neglected, unfertilized pineapple to become worthy of a knife and a fork? In the end, my little midget was not a prize winner in size but the flavor, by golly, was over-the-top delicious!

Now, farm-raised Denise could put a spin on my pineapple story that would leave the reader both entertained and enriched. I love the way she always gleans some spiritual lesson from ordinary events. In my case, perhaps there might be several applications, such as how patience yields its fruit in season, how it's best not to judge a book by its cover, or . . . hmmmm, maybe . . . learning to hear with a cochlear implant can be like growing a pineapple: it can take considerable time and practice before the brain gets the full benefit/yield from this technological miracle. (That last sentence sure sounds like a Forrest Gump-ism)

To be honest with you, though, my sense of accomplishment over this juicy morsel is certainly unjustified. The same is true for the variety of orchids that adorn one of our crepe myrtle trees. All I do is hang them there; it's our awesome Creator who graces them with long-lasting blooms for us to admire. I did nothing to merit a pineapple or an orchid bloom. And I did nothing to deserve to have such successful cochlear implants!

So this side-tracked musing of mine is turning out to be a non-N.C.I.S. after all. I guess I am so very grateful for the gift of restored hearing that even harvesting a pineapple reminds me to thank God for sight, smell, taste, and hearing.

Maybe I should see what God would do with a banana plant.

He makes all things beautiful in His time. Eccles.3:11