Luck is a Pear Tree

Outside my home stands a great pear tree.

It casts a great shadow over our simple one room wooden house. It is the only tree around us that bears fruit.

In the spring it sprouts beautiful white flowers and smells so thick and fragrant it feels like you're eating something sweet just by breathing.

In the summer months the leaves are as shiny and bright as fat green jewels.

In the autumn months the leaves turn red and dance like fire in the breeze.

In winter it becomes naked and looks just like any other tree that surrounds our mountain home.

Since Papa died Mama is the one who harvests the fruit. She plucks the ripe fruit in the late summer, when they are perfect. She stands up on the rickety wooden ladder Papa made and circles around the great tree trunk plucking and inspecting fruit for hours.

Most of the pears make it into the woven baskets below, but others (the rejected ones) are tossed to the grassy floor.

I help Mama by gathering the rejected pears in our personal basket. It isn't as strong as the ones for market, and it has a hole in the side that needs to be mended. These pears are for us, to make jams and pies and other treats for the coming chilly months.

Once she's finished she ties the baskets to our only mule and heads down the mountain. I watch until I can't see her anymore, then I'll go up on the porch and inspect the pears we have left.

Grandma steps out of the house and sits beside me; she's fanning herself with a plain white paper fan, she never likes the summer heat. She's sweating even though both of us are only wearing cotton shifts.

'One day you'll be the one going to market, Chiyo.'

I have never been to the market. I have never been down the mountain. I was born and raised here, and we have no neighbors and no other family. I was curious to what market was like; Mama always comes home with supplies for the winter after she sold our harvest. Sometimes she'd buy me a new dress or candy; but mostly she just buys important things.

I think the market will be a grand adventure, one day.

'Grandma,' I say, 'How old is our pear tree? Will it be here forever, to help us through the winter?'

'Do you know why we have a pear tree?'

I frown, because that isn't the answer to my questions. But, it's rude to talk back to your elders. So, I just shake my head.

'You know how your Mama prunes the tree? How she gives it water from our well? How she's careful to always check the trunk for rot or insects?'

I keep frowning, I don't understand how any of this has to do with my questions. 'Yes, it's so the tree stays healthy and helps it make fruit.' Mama has shown me how to do all these things but it's very boring.

'Yes.' Grandma says with a smile, 'She does those things so the tree will continue to take care of our family.'

I nod sagely but don't entirely understand, how does a tree take care of us? We take care of the tree! Just like we do our chickens, and our mule. 'Did we build our house here because of the tree?'

'No,' She says, 'Our house was here first.'

'So was it luck that it sprouted from the ground?'

'No,' Grandma says, 'It wasn't luck. It was the love of your ancestors.'

'My ancestors planted this tree? So it's hundreds of years old!' I exclaim, my eyes wide with excitement and wonder.

Grandma laughs, 'Yes, and no.' She says, 'This tree is not hundreds of years old. Less than that. Your grandpa planted this tree.'

'Grandpa?'

'Yes, when he was younger and your mother was your age.' She said, 'The cycle of these trees are less than a hundred years. When the tree wilts, when the fruit dries up, we chop down the tree. We use it's wood to repair our house, to build what we need, to keep us warm during the winter. We plant another tree in it's place.'

The answer felt far less magical than before. But, I could still sense the wonder in that new information. It was difficult to think about Mama being my age, and Grandpa not being old. I scrunched my face up thinking about it, and thinking even beyond that, about people I have never met who had planted the trees before.

'But why don't we just plant a lot of them? We could be rich!'

'Chiyo,' Grandma scolds, but her laughter softens her tone, 'It is not about being rich. It's about balance.' She said, 'Our family line continues in the same way as these trees. Eventually I'll be gone, just like Grandpa and Papa, but you'll be here with your Mama, with the pear tree. One day you'll be the one to plant a new tree with your husband, and you'll be telling your child this story.'

'Balance.' I try the word on my tongue, rolling it around in my mouth, kicking my feet from where they swing off the porch edge, 'We take care of the tree and the tree takes care of us.'

'Not just us, but everyone after us.'

I looked at the gnarled pear tree twisting up towards the sky from the middle of our yard. It felt even more important now than it did before. This tree was my responsibility too.

The tree was a part of our family.

It wasn't about what we could take, but what we could also give.

'Balance is something you should seek in all things in life.' Grandma said, and I understood it better now.

We are responsible for the footprint we leave and the gifts we take.