Small family enterprises or hobbies

by: Dr. A Cecil Cyrus 21.JUN.11

Certain small family enterprises or hobbies are simple but effective means of sustaining family life. And the one that I favour is vegetable gardening. I crave your kind indulgence while I relate my personal experiences in this regard. Within four years of returning home, I began to grow a few vegetables, and this became such an obsessive, enjoyable diversion that I used to describe myself as a gardener who spared time to do a little surgery.{{more}} As our children grew older, they began to take an interest in my expanding garden, and they helped as much as they cared to. Within a few years, I began to sell some of my crops to select friends and a supermarket. I carefully recorded and saved every cent until it totaled the incredible sum of EC$3,300. It would have been more if my wife had paid me for the family portion of my crops! This money meant more to us than my salary as a doctor. Several years later, in 1987, it was used to purchase our first daughter’s wedding dress. All of us felt pride, and enjoyed the wedding much more, because of our respective contributions, including the bride’s. Even though I grow many more vegetables today, I have not sold any of it since those early years. Instead, I share it with family, staff and several others.

When they were five and four years old respectively, our grandsons, Sebastian and Alexander, also assisted in my garden. And I laughed one day when Sebastian proudly told his mummy that when he grew up he wanted to be a gardener like his granddad, thinking that that was my real profession. After deductions for NIS and income tax, each used to receive $5 for a day’s work, however short. Later, I gave each of them a little portion of my garden to grow his own vegetables. One Sunday, Alex reaped a huge cauliflower (coooliflower as he called it) much larger than my own, which had been planted at the same time. He swelled with pride as he posed with it for a photograph. Today, six years later, they both help their daddy to manage his garden. And, whenever they visit us, much of our conversation is about gardening.

When granddaughter Chelsea germinated two pigeon peas between blotting paper, as a Primary School project, she and I planted them in her garden. I taught her how to tend them. With her dedicated care, they produced numerous peas which she and her family proudly picked and shelled. They are still going. I built her a vegetable garden. Two weeks ago, she hastened to tell me that her family of five was eating, in rationed portions, their first pineapple, so that it would last longer.

Our last granddaughter Jade’s pumpkin germinated similarly at school, and which I assisted her to plant in my garden, produced several massive pumpkins, the largest weighing 15 pounds. She proudly boasts that it formed the nucleus for her daddy’s pumpkin project.

Gardening has such a wonderful, therapeutic effect, as it keeps one in the fresh air, witnessing and savoring the miracle of plant life.

HEALTH OF BODY

Your major aim is to improve the quality and, hence, the quantity of people’s lives. This must, of necessity, involve health of body, which in turn will contribute to, and ensure soundness of mind. And, what better medium in maintaining health of body than exercise, not only in adults but in children? Play areas must be provided where these little dynamos of ceaseless motion can expend their restless energy in healthy frolic. One writer put it very appropriately: “Every child should have ample opportunity for play, for play is the child’s work and preparation for life.”

A lifestyle that does not include exercise can play a great role in the progress of a number of diseases. Exercise in early and middle life delays the onset or progression of some diseases. Therefore, those benefits should be maintained by a policy of encouraging the elderly in the family to take physical exercise. It was the Greek philosopher, Socrates, who said it beautifully: “Bodily habit is spoiled by rest and idleness, but preserved for a long time by motion and exercise.” Exercise is of great value in the prevention and management of diabetes. It prevents hearts attacks, high blood pressure and strokes. Exercise also allows the diabetic to eat more freely without the blood sugar rising abnormally.

Exercise also prevents the onset of the loss of calcium in bone, so-called osteoporosis, which leads not only to bone pain, but especially fractures. Exercise helps also in the management of obesity. And so, in the family, the elderly should be encouraged to take physical exercise. And this can be done most successfully if the younger members of the family arrange this as a part of their routine, making their elderly feel wanted and cared for. So important is exercise in initiating and maintaining health that the Royal College of Physicians of England produced a book entitled ‘Exercise and health.’

Final part next week