RePEARing The Past

There it was. The pear tree. The first gift that was given in the famous Christmas song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” But the last gift my father ever gave me was pears from the pear tree that grew in the backyard of the family home. I hadn’t been home in over twenty years. Hundreds of miles between us were not the only distance that was between us. It also was a very strained relationship. But they were still my family. I stood outside the beaten-down house and thought back to the very first days our family moved into this small town and stepped foot into this house. This place was no longer home. Just a haunted symbol of my past. After my parents died the house was taken by foreclosure. It took years to find the new owner and purchase back the property. I thought I could let it go. I thought that it was for the best. I hated that town. I hated the people in it that made my life hell. That made me feel ashamed of who I was and how I looked. They bullied me in so many ways. It is not even conceivable why. You would never once think that an entire town was capable of being a bully. It was what it was. Don’t get me wrong, there were some great people in that town. But most of them were treated the same way as I was. Just because we weren’t from there or looked different, didn’t have any relations with anyone there. Just a bunch of outsiders that moved in and were trying to make a life. I held on to this resentment that I had because my parents moved us there. It was a town that was my jail. No wonder the first chance I got, I escaped and never once came back. Over the years, I kept thinking of the house, more of the moments that were spent as a family. It wasn’t the house itself that kept me focused on the property. It was the pear tree that my dad had planted. The rose bushes. The apple trees. His passion was to grow things. He put a little bit of his life into planting and growing these. It was a part of him. It was a part of us as a family. It was a part of me. It had been seven years that had gone by. I had won the lottery and the first thing that came to mind was this place. Which for some reason still had a hold of me. It was then I decided that I was going to buy back the place and turn it into a memorial park. There in the center was the two pear trees that to me represented my parents. Because you can’t just have one to produce fruit. You have to have two. And that was what represented my mother and father. Because without them there wouldn’t have been us. I had a bench with their name engraved in it built to put in the front. My parents would not go unknown. I stood there and looked at the house and the property. There had been no upkeep done at all. Everything was overgrown and the years had not been kind. I jingled the keys in my hand and walked up the steps and unlocked the door. As the door opened, I was overtaken by nostalgia. I walked through the house to every room. As the remembrance of memories flooded my mind of what once was. Touching the little things that only I knew once were. The last thing I looked at was the wall in the dining room. There was an imprint of where the family portrait once was hung. I touched the wall and left my hand there for a brief moment. Wishing that things could have been different. Wishing that time could erase the hurt I was feeling and the regret that I wasn’t there in the end. Tears began to surface in my eyes. I removed my hand. This was my final chance for closure. I fought back the tears as I heard machinery outside. And with that. I said my final goodbye. The bulldozer was there and the rest of the construction crew. “Please wait for me to leave before you begin,” I said with a very shaky voice. I got in my car and looked back one last time. That is when I saw the sign. “PAIR TREE FAMILY PARK”. Below it stated, "a place where you will never be alone." I took in a deep breath and started the car. And with that, I finally put the past to rest.

- By Tia Dalu Souhrada