Growing Up in a Greenhouse

The year was 1993. I was five years old and life was good.

I was in pre-school on the campus of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina (A&T). A&T was the campus I’d grown to know and love because my parents. My mother received her bachelor’s degree from the university and my father was a professor for the school’s department of Agronomy.

But Papa wasn’t just a person who liked plants. He spent most of his life studying the physiology of plants and received his Ph.D. degree in horticulture from Nottingham University and became Dean of the College of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Liberia, until 1980, when he and my mother immigrated to America as a result of a military take-over of the government.

But back to that term I mentioned earlier: horticulture. Horticulture, my friends, is the art or practice of garden cultivation and management. AKA: the agriculture of plants, mainly for food, materials, comfort and beauty for decoration (verrrryyy bougy). So yes, my father, McKinley A. DeShield Jr. was deeply into plants and all the green things.

He had an office that was in a trailer, filled with papers—stacked and scattered. He had so many books. The smell of old library books and old typewriter ink often take me back to Papa’s office. Though I remember that office in detail, the place where we spent A LOT of time was the campus greenhouse.

That greenhouse was magical. So full of life and light. Papa was at home and in peace as we spent time in that greenhouse. As if the soil and his skin had become one. He studied those plants, nourished and poured into them. He spoke to them, shared sacred stories and secrets, played music for them (another great love of his) and watched them grow and flourish.

Life has a funny way of showing you things that have been there all along. The way my father showed so much love and admiration for his passion is the same way he poured unconditional love and devotion into my family and I. He did the same with his home country of Liberia. Papa laid down a foundation so his community could thrive and find independence knowing that they could grow and manifest nourishment for their souls and bodies.

My father passed away in 1997. I only got to spend eight full years with him on this earth, but somehow through God, he was able to instill an eternity of goodness and grace into my siblings and I. I’ve learned so many life lessons from my father. Simply being a good and caring person, never stop learning, helping those around you, making the most of the resources you have and more.

As I begin this journey with Eclecs, my goal is to take these life lessons with me in every project that I do and every client I collaborate with. I thank God for bringing me to this part of my journey and career. I am forever grateful for my father and to have grown up in a greenhouse.