Bruce Harvey

Some years ago a beautiful baby was born in Cape Town. He was named Alex after his father’s side of the family and lived with his maternal grandparents for about four years.

His biological parents each paid maintenance to them, but had very little contact with Alex. They had divorced and had both taken new partners. The biological parents later discovered that they both lived in Pretoria and it was decided that Alex would come to live with his father and stepmother, also seeing his biological mother.

His new “mother” had a father called Bruce who “adopted” Alex as his grandson. Bruce took Alex and his biological granddaughters to Sunday school at Corpus Christi, where he was a Sunday School teacher. In class it was decided that all the children would plant an acorn in a pot and nurture it until it needed to be replanted.

Outside the church was a magnificent oak tree where the acorns were collected. The children decorated their pots with pretty pictures and their names. The idea was to teach children to care for and love something, while illustrating how a small acorn can grow into a huge tree.

Alex at the tree named Bobby
Photo: Bruce Harvey

Each Sunday the children diligently watered their pots and waited for the acorn tree to grow. The end of the term arrived and there was no sign of any life in the pots. During the holidays there was no Sunday school. Five weeks went by and the Sunday before the children were due to come back a small miracle took place. Some of the pots had small trees that had suddenly sprung up as if overnight.

Growth was very slow but the children proudly showed their trees to their parents and kept watering and hoping. Later a church fete was held and Bruce gave all the pots to the garden section and explained to the children that funds for the church were badly needed. On the children’s insistence all the pots were repurchased from the fete by their parents.

Alex and his stepsisters brought their pots home and left them outside. After the winter, the trees looked a little worse for wear with only a few leaves left. Hope was not lost, however.

Bruce helped Alex to plant his tree at the back of the garden, but things didn’t look good. In fact, the few leaves fell off and only a stick was left.

Alex’s great grandfather was a man called Bobby. On his 90th birthday Alex went to Cape Town to take part in the celebrations. They spoke about the acorn tree and on the spur of the moment Alex decided to name his tree Bobby.

Back in Pretoria the tree would occasionally grow a few leaves only to lose them again. Alex and grandpa Bruce kept watering with limited lasting progress. A few years went by and then great grandpa Bobby passed away.

This is when the miracle happened. A few weeks afterwards the tree produced about five leaves. After a further two weeks Bobby had 20 leaves, and has never looked back since. Today Bobby is over three metres tall and is making its shade available to anybody who wishes to sit there.

Some people say that the spirit of great grandpa Bobby is in the acorn tree named after him, because it was at the time of his passing that Bobby the tree started flourishing. Grandpa Bruce seems to think it is a way of telling Alex that if you look after something and nurture it with hope, great miracles will happen.