Two doors east of my home lives a small brown boy who charms bees. I watch in amazement as he coaxes them onto his extended finger and strokes their backs with tenderness.

Each day the boy greets me as I return from work and pleads to work with me among my flowers and vegetable plants.

Only seven or eight years old, the boy cannot yet articulate the crush of poverty and the suspicious stares that threaten his daily comfort.

But I think he understands. I think he comes to my garden for a touch of something vibrant and hopeful.

Just last weekend, I was startled by his pounding fist on my back door and his excited shouts.

When I swung the door open, he held aloft an old mayonnaise jar housing two fragile chrysalis with the delicate wings of a pair of monarchs just beginning to break forth.

With eager patience and hope, he had nursed them through the seasons for just this moment.

Like all mothers, I know what it is to hope for one’s children. I know what it means to be willing to die for one’s children.

But for the courageous act of one young Iowa State student, I may never have had a taste of what it means to be willing to die for another’s children.

Today, Allan Nosworthy comes one day closer to dying for the children of others.

Willingly, he hungers, both physically and spiritually, for the hope that my neighbor, my little brown bee charmer, can someday break free of the chrysalis of poverty and suspicion, to spread his wings in a garden of his own planting.

Beth Jorgensen

Ph.D. student

Rhetoric and professional communication