10/29/2026
THE SEED JAR.
Grandma Nia kept a jar of seeds on her windowsill. When Ama was seven, she asked why.
“These are from every garden I was told I couldn’t grow,” Nia said.
The soil was too rocky. She was too young. Later she was too old. Women didn’t farm that land. She planted anyway, and some years almost nothing came up. Then one year everything did.
When Ama turned eighteen and got her first rejection letter from a college, she cried at the kitchen table. Nia slid the jar toward her.
“Take a seed,” she said. “Then go plant something they said wouldn’t grow.”
Ama applied again. She got rejected again. On the third try, she got in.
Now there are two jars on the windowsill. The Moral of this story is, you’re allowed to start, try again, and take up space.
