"Please read this," my three-year-old Claire said one day, pointing to a page with an old children's song: "Do you know how to plant cabbages". In blue ink, someone had crossed out cabbages and written "Watermelons!" "Daddy! Did you do that?" Claire asked, looking up with an expression of shock. We had only recently asked her not to write in books, and suddenly here was proof that her parents weren't practicing what they asked. I told her it was written by my grandfather and sat down to tell the story. I grew up on Granddad's farm in Nebraska, America. One afternoon, I decided to plant some watermelons.  "Hmm, there's a crop I haven't tried!" Granddad smiled. "Let's do it now!" With Granddad's help I planted the seeds. The next morning, I found a big watermelon there. I knew it was Granddad that put a watermelon there and I thought he had played a joke on me. Later that month, Granddad gave me a book. "For school," he said seriously. I opened it to where he'd written "Watermelons!" and laughed at another of his jokes. Claire listened quietly to the story and asked to plant seeds too, so I took her to buy some seeds. On the walk home, I realized for the first time that Granddad could have met my childish enthusiasm with some disappointing facts such as that watermelons don't grow well in Nebraska or that it was too late to plant them anyway. But instead of doing that, he had stolen back into town that afternoon and bought the biggest melon on the market. That night, after I was asleep, he had awkwardly unloaded it and, with a painful bend, placed it exactly above my seeds. He made sure I experienced the "wow." I had always thought the midnight miracle was just one of Granddad's jokes. Now I realized he had planted hope that day. As Claire planted the seeds happily, I watched my grandfather's joy take fresh root in her life. And that was the biggest miracle of all. Why did Granddad put a watermelon where the author planted seeds?
Because he didn't want to waste the watermelon. Because he didn't want to disappoint the author. Because he wanted to make fun of the author. Because he wanted the author to be a farmer.