Papa's Pear

I remember when grandfather first taught me to listen to the music of the trees.

He took me to a pear grove and had me touch a tree trunk. He then asked me to close my eyes.

“Do you hear it?” he asked, looking at me expectantly.

At the time, I was probably ten years old, and he was about sixty-five. I remember wearing long plaits in my muddy brown hair, and a pale yellow sundress that I bought at the discount store in town. It had pretty little bluebells sprinkled all over, and I felt like a fairy when I wore it.

My grandfather was only just starting to go grey, and had a full head of bushy red hair. He was very tall and as gentle as he was giant, and I knew even then that he had a sixth sense about him. He often talked to me about natural spirits and the depth of feeling experienced even by the dragonflies that always made me jump when they came near.

That day in the grove, it was just perfectly warm, as we were heading into autumn, and the sun shone through the tree branches above us, occasionally blinding me when a sliver of sunlight flickered across my deep grey eyes.

I welcomed the chance to close them for a moment, and my fingers softly pressed upon the tree bark, as grandfather had instructed. I tried my hardest to hear something, anything, other than the rustling of the leaves above.

Disappointed in myself, I replied, “I’m not sure. What do you hear Papa?”

He just smiled and said, “You will learn to listen for it. Five musical notes. A whistling that you will never forget once you hear it.”

He then reached down and gave me a big hug, and swooped me onto his shoulders like I was a rag doll. I feigned a scream and giggled with pleasure because I loved to see beyond the grownups who towered over me. My grandfather knew this; I was always gazing off, craning my neck, to see the world around me since I was a baby, he once told me.

For a moment, I realized that one day I would be too big for him to raise me up onto his shoulders and I hugged his neck so hard he coughed and said, “Take it easy, girl, I ain’t dropped you yet, have I?”

I loosened my grip and said, “I just love you so much Papa. Can you teach me how to listen to the trees make music?”

He then stopped under a bough that hung heavy with a robust pear, and I reached up and plucked it off. He hoisted me off of his shoulders and put my feet back on the ground.

“When you eat that pear,” he said, “I want you to eat it slowly and taste the sweetness of it. And when you do, that will be your first step to hearing the music of a pear tree.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him, but when we left the grove and got into his truck for him to take me home, I hung onto the pear like my life depended on it. He kissed and hugged me when he dropped me off, and I hurried through the front porch, and past my mother in the kitchen, but not before she called out, “Slow down, there, what’s your hurry, Leigh?”

I stopped and turned around as she was wiping her hands off on her pink, checkered apron. “No reason, I just want to go to my room to eat this pear,” I said, holding it up proudly for her to see in all it’s green-gold splendor and glory.

She laughed and said, “Go on then, foolish child,” and returned to rolling out pie dough she had spread out in front of a large milk glass bowl filled with dark red cherries.

I took two stairs at a time, and when I reached the top of the staircase, I hopscotch-hopped into my bedroom and shut the door. I sat on my worn, lilac bedspread, and looked away from the Kirk Cameron poster that hung on the back of my bedroom door. I just could not have any distractions.

I held the pear in front of my face, closed my eyes for good measure, and took a clean, solid piece of plump pear flesh between my gapped front teeth.

Eyes still closed, I could feel the delicious juice dribble out of the side of my mouth and down my chin as I slowly chewed and savoured the pear. And though I listened hard, I heard nothing, except the hum of a dragonfly outside, peering into my window.

I finished the pear, wiped my mouth with the back of my hands, and wondered what I had done wrong. I suspected that I needed to more frequently practice listening.

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Four years later, we buried my grandfather in the cemetery nearby that same pear grove. I was heartbroken, and had since forgotten that I was supposed to learn to listen to the trees. (Although, after that day I spent in the grove with him, I did insist that mother put me in piano lessons.)

After his funeral, my own sad juices poured from my eyes and nose, until my sobs turned into hiccups. Family and friends had gathered at our house to share stories, tea cakes and potted meat sandwiches. My mother gave me a tissue and a glass of water, and told me to count to ten before I stopped drinking.

As the hiccups subsided, I found an empty chair in the corner of the living room and sat down to separate my grief from that of the guests, who seemed more accepting than I was that it was “just his time.”

As I was about to turn and stare out the window, an old friend of my grandfather approached me. I remembered him being introduced to me a couple of years before, as a childhood friend of my grandfather. I especially remembered him because he seemed so unlike Papa. He was much shorter, with black salt-n-pepper hair, straight as a whip, and he was loud and boisterous - not at all earthy or spiritual. But yet they talked for hours. I could not remember his name though.

I was painfully shy and awkward at fourteen years old, and was hoping his childhood friend wasn’t there to try and console me. I crossed my arms in front of me when he spoke.

“Well, Leigh,” he said in an unexpectedly quiet voice, “I have something I want to give you, something Papa gave me years ago. I just think he would want you to have it.” He then reached into the pocket of his tweed jacket and pulled out an object wrapped in an olive green handkerchief.

“He told me it was a singing tree. Your Papa sure had a funny way of looking at things, but he was never wrong, just the same.” He then smiled at me, but I noticed a sadness in his eyes. I uncrossed my arms.

He opened the handkerchief, and showed me what looked like a wooden whistle.

“Barry made this for me, from the bough of a pear tree,” he said. “It’s a pentatonic whistle. You wouldn’t know by looking at it, but it makes the most beautiful sounds.”

Without another word, he handed me the wooden whistle, and left my side just as quickly as he had come.

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Later that evening, after everyone had gone, I went outside and took the whistle with me, holding it next to my heart. I calmly stopped in my tracks as a dragonfly came out of nowhere, and passed right under my nose. After I watched it fly away, I closed my eyes. Listening closely, I could hear a cluster of pear trees singing in the distance.