Moments with Dagmawit

Last Sunday, Daggy and I spent about an hour and a half in our garden digging up sweet potatoes. I have to say she looked every bit the hard working African girl in her long ruffled jean skirt, a mismatched long sleeved blouse and flip-flops as she carried her hand trowel across the yard to the garden, her hair in tight ringlets framing her beautiful, expressive and intelligent face.

She was on cloud nine bending over the soil digging in the cool autumn sun, and stayed enthusiastically engaged the entire time, quite a feat for a five year old. But Dagmawit has a strong drive to be competent, it’s important to her. Also, she is happy when she’s working. Although, she doesn’t consciously articulate it, she knows that happiness is a byproduct of being engaged in the moment with an activity she finds meaningful. I pray she never loses this innate wisdom.

When I found a potato, I’d say “Dig here”, and she’d scrape, dig and pry until she could tug at the tuber and pull it out with her hands. Other times we’d work separately. If I pulled one from the ground she’d shout “Great” and take it from me to put on the growing pile. The feedback of seeing the pile grow was exhilarating to her. At one point she pointed to the pile of sweet potatoes and said, “They’re having a meeting.” Several times she referred to our small garden plot as “our little farm” with a sense of pride and ownership.

At one point in our digging we uncovered and disturbed a toad who was trying to hibernate for the winter. Half buried he endured a few moments of our gently stroking his back as I explained to Daggy about hibernation. Then we covered him again. For the rest of the time, however, she kept asking if we could look at it again, and I kept saying it was respectful to leave it alone. When we finished with our work I finally relented and said we could take one more, quick look. We couldn’t find him. I suspect he dug himself in deeper to escape us pesky humans.

Daggy also came across a number of worms which delighted her.

Yesterday, we learned that the sister of a good friend died. Our friend lives on the west coast so Dagmawit has never met her, but she’s been very generous and kind to Daggy with a number of thoughtful gifts, and they’ve chatted on the phone. Daggy’s response to the news of her distant friend’s sadness was very touching. She genuinely cared, and made a picture for her using many colors, but especially green because Margie told her that was our friend’s favorite color. She included a green stone in the picture because the friend had sent her several beautiful stones. When finished she asked me to write “I’m sorry your sister died.” A few moments later she added several other comments that Margie wrote for her. It was an authentic display of sensitivity.

Later in the evening, at bedtime, Dagmawit and Margie were lying in bed talking about our friend’s sister. Dagmawit asked her mother if the sister would become trees and flowers. Then she asked if we would. Margie said, “It will be a very long time before you become trees and flowers.”

“I’m not excited about that,” Daggy said softly.

Having lived until last year in the hinterlands of Ethiopia, where life is often short and grueling, Dagmawit has seen more death than most American children. It’s obvious from things she’s said that she’s aware of life’s fragility and impermanence. Maybe that’s why she has such zest for living.