After hearing his mother’s conversation with his grandfather on the phone, Adrian changed his plans to help the older man with his gardening. While digging through the soil, the boy discovered a stash of old photos, making his grandfather cry as he told Adrian the story behind the buried photos.

“Dad! You can’t just garden alone. What about your back? Leave it for some other day, and Adrian and I will come help,” Adrian heard his mother, Julia, talking on the phone with his granddad. He had been preparing his backpack because his class was going on a school trip to the local aquarium.

He had been excited about the trip, but he went into the living room and continued listening to the conversation between his mother and Grandpa Colin. Finally, she hung up, and Adrian approached her. “Mommy, Grandpa needs help?” he asked.

“Yes, sweetie, but some other time. We need to go, so you can enjoy your trip,” she answered, patting his head.

“Oh,” the older man said as Adrian finally lifted the stash from the soil. It was a cardboard box, and it was covered in wetness and moss. “I can’t believe it.”
“No, I can skip it. Let’s go help Grandpa,” Adrian suggested and looked down at his shoes. “I’m going to put on the boots Grandpa gave me.”

“Adrian, no. What about the aquarium?” his mother reminded him. They lived in Atlanta, and a visit to the local aquarium was always so fun and exciting for the kids.

“We can go some other time, right? And today, we’ll be planting trees and stuff, right? It’s nature!” Adrian exclaimed, and his mother sighed, nodding at him.

“Ok, if you insist,” she stated, picking up her phone to call her father. “Hey, Dad. We’re going over there.”

***

Gardening was more fun than Adrian even imagined. His grandfather was happy for their help and company. Adrian’s mother took advantage of the visit to help arrange her father’s things inside the house.

“Ok, Adrian. Dig a big hole over there, and we’ll plant this last tree. After, we can order a huge pizza and eat until we can’t anymore,” Grandpa Colin said, wiggling his eyebrows and making Adrian laugh.

The boy fist pumped the air and started digging as quickly as possible. But his hands quickly uncovered something odd. “Grandpa, there’s something here!” he called out.

“What is it?” the older man called from a few feet away.

“I don’t know. Come! It’s heavy!” Adrian said when he couldn’t lift it. He kept digging the dirt around it, trying to unearth it as best he could. “It’s a hidden stash! A treasure! Come, Grandpa!”

“Oh,” the older man said as Adrian finally lifted the stash from the soil. It was a cardboard box, and it was covered in wetness and moss. “I can’t believe it.”

“What is it?” the boy asked, looking up at his granddad.

“I haven’t seen that in, well, since I was your age, kid,” Grandpa Colin revealed and sat down on the dirt next to his grandson to open the box.

“Photos!” the kid said, excited. His grandfather started flipping through them. A few were ruined from time and moisture, but most of them had survived. “Did you take these?”

“Years ago, yes. You want to hear that story?” the older man asked, and Adrian nodded eagerly.

“When I was around your age, my mom gave me a big camera, and I started taking pictures. She told me I was going to become a professional photographer one day,” Grandpa Colin revealed, smiling at the pictures. “Look, there’s me and my mother, your great-grandma.”

“What happened? Did you grow up and take pictures?” Adrian asked, looking at the old photos.

“No, I didn’t. One day, my father came home from a hard day. He was grumpy and tired, but I startled him with the camera flash, and he got really, really mad at me. He grabbed the camera, broke it, and told me to get rid of everything,” his grandad explained, his mouth pulling down in a grimace.

“No!” Adrian said, frowning too.

“Yeah, but I couldn’t throw my photos away. I put them all in a box and buried them right here,” Grandpa Colin continued. “I just forgot all about them!”

“Wow, Dad. I had no idea,” Julia interrupted. She had brought them some lemonade and heard the entire story. She sat down on the soil and asked her father about the pictures too.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I loved photography. But I forgot all about it after burying the pictures. I can’t believe how well-preserved they are,” Grandpa Colin continued.

After a few more minutes, they went inside and brought the photos with them. Julia helped him clean some, and they planned to place the prettiest around his house.

Later, Adrian saved his allowance to buy his grandpa a new camera for his birthday. Of course, Julia had to help pay most of the cost, but she was glad to do it. The older man cried in front of the family for the first time ever, so Adrian rushed to embrace him. “You should be a photographer! It’s never too late!”

Grandpa Colin smiled at him through tears and nodded his head. “You are right, kid. You’re so right,” he uttered sagely.

What can we learn from this story?

It’s never too late to pursue the dreams you had as a child. Adrian reminded his grandfather that he could still pursue photography because it’s never too late to start over in life.
Raise your kids to want to help their family above anything else. Adrian had been raised so well that he gave up his fun school trip for a day of gardening with his granddad. That’s something remarkable that most children wouldn’t have done.

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a boy who helped an older woman carry groceries, and his mom received a huge reward later.

This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only.