The Backyard Nature Healed My Fever

Season changes, and my kids get sick. As I nurse them, it brings back fond memories of my own fever days in childhood. So, let me share.

My mother, a homemaker, took care of me with so much love and attention. She would make me rest on a cot on the inner porch, wrapping me in a blanket and applying herbal balm to my chest. She would feed me milk-soaked biscuits or sago porridge.

“What do you need?” she’d ask gently. I’d usually request a stack of storybooks. But after a while, I’d get bored.

Then she’d suggest, “Why don’t you go to the backyard?”

“Why?” I’d ask skeptically. “How will that help me?”

But she’d insist, and I’d follow her advice.

Once in the backyard, I’d sit on the cement porch, observing the plants standing quietly. Our calf would approach me, and I would stroke its jowl.

The chickens would be busy scratching the soil in the far corners of the yard. They would run to me looking for grains. I’d tell them, “I have a fever today, so I can’t help you.”

Then I’d wander under the Java plum, mango, custard apple or guava trees. I’d pick an orange from the low branch, savoring its taste. To my feverish tongue, it felt like a treat.

I’d watch a garden lizard camouflaging itself on the brick wall or pluck delicate maidenhair ferns. I’d inhale the orange marigolds blooming in all their glory. I would pop some Himalayan balsam pods.

The sun would feel warm and comforting on my skin, and a gentle walk would lift my mood.

When I finally returned inside, I’d tell my mother, “I feel better now.”

She’d smile knowingly and say, “I told you so.”

That’s how I healed from fever, not with painkillers or tablets, but with the gentle touch of nature. Yes, the backyard garden was a microcosm of nature.

Let nature heal you, too. Let me share some inspiring nature quotes.

“Our relationship with nature is more one of being than having. We are nature: we do not have nature.” — Steven Harper

“There is no other door to knowledge than the door nature opens; there is no truth except the truths we discover in nature.” — Luther Burbank

“Human beings are the only creatures who are able to behave irrationally in the name of reason.” — Ashley Montagu

“Humankind’s greatest priority is to reintegrate with the natural world.” — Jonathon Porritt

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” — Rachel Carson

“Listen to the voice of nature, for it holds treasures for you.” — Native American (Huron) Proverb

“Nature has been for me, for as long as I remember, a source of solace, inspiration, adventure, and delight; a home, a teacher, a companion.” — Lorraine Anderson

“The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.” — Sioux Proverb

“The source of man’s unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature.” — Paul Henry Thiry D’Holbach

“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.” — Henry David Thoreau

“The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.” — Barry Commoner

“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.” — E. B. White

“It is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.” — Wendell Berry

“Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to a man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures.” — Dalai Lama

I hope you loved it.