You Know A Tree By Its Fruit.

Mystery is a funny thing. A mysterious person intrigues us and keeps us hanging around to figure them out. A mysterious happening keeps our attention as we wonder and question, in hopes of ironing it all out. There is an arousal that happens with this thing called mystery. We are stirred with a passion to unravel it, to unlock it; and I, like many others, was awakened to this stirring by a pear-tree. That’s right, a mysterious tree that had either been planted alone or time had erased all signs of other tree “company”. There it stood on a forsaken highway, looking dry, displaced and fruitless to the passerby. I had driven by this tree many times in the last year and every time I did I felt sad for the tree. Sad it was here, sad it was alone, sad it was not bearing fruit; for that was its purpose and sadly this tree hadn’t seen the likes of a bud (in multiple forms of the word) in ages. It seemed so futile, a fruit tree with no fruit. Everyday I drove by and wondered why. Why leave it up? Why not just tear it down? It stuck out like a sore thumb anyway, and so the wondering began to build. Then one day as I was driving by I noticed an old shoe hanging from one of its branches. It caught my eye but honestly I didn’t give too much thought to it. I’ve seen stranger things, and in my neck of the woods hanging tennis shoes are not so uncommon. However, time passed and like a mystery, those shoes must have inspired people. For whatever reason they beaconed people to stop and little by little I noticed more shoes showing up.

There weren’t many, maybe a total of five in a matter of that year. However, they started to pique my curiosity and after a year of watching this pear tree stand alone, forgotten and fruitless. I needed to see what was behind the mystery of the new shoe buds. One day after work I purposed to stop and unravel the mystery. As I was pulling in, another awakened passerby was pulling out and I imagined that they had unlocked the secret of the shoes I was searching for. I got out of the car thinking, “what am I expecting to find?” It’s a dead tree, and some old sneakers. There couldn’t be much more to see than that. Oh but there was!

The first pair of shoes I noticed was a pair of pink converse. They were worn but taken care of, a few scuffs and scratches but not faded. As I neared them, I noticed writing on the midsole of one of the shoes. It read… “kicking cancer's ass” and was signed by Jessica. I could imagine Jessica in her bright pink converse as she walked out of a doctor’s office for the last time. I could hear the ringing of a bell, the nurses clapping, and the celebration of whistles and hoots as they watched her walk out an overcomer. I imagined her in a Honda Civic driving down this ole highway, with some of her best friends blaring “I’m a survivor” as loud as she possibly could. Inspired by the moment, the pain and the future I watched her take off the shoes, rise through the sunroof and toss those bright pink converse into the air. I could hear all the girls cheering as they watched them fade into the distance. The tree must have caught those shoes with such pride. She must have finally felt a part of something. So many years alone. So many quiet, lonely years and now she held a moment so dear. She held a part of Jessica. The pear tree held it close, held it well, and I thought— they looked great on her.

I smiled as my eyes searched for another pair of shoes and was drawn in by a ragged, broken pair of brown flip flops. Close enough to inspect for words, I noticed a date. Written in ink were the numbers 07-11-2000. I wondered what the significance of that date was. It didn’t seem like it'd be a birthday. For this lonesome highway and old fruitless tree didn’t seem to have the draw for a person to make a mark for their birthday or wedding etc…and so my mind traveled. I could see a tired gentleman, a broken gentleman. He got out of a beat-up truck and walked slowly to the tree, he sat down at the trunk and started to cry. In my mind I watched him cry for what seemed like hours and as he tired of crying, I watched him rest his head back on the tree and look up. His eyes caught the shoes and as he stared, I wondered if he noticed the words. That’s when he stood up, touching the shoes with his hands…running his finger over the words and I watched his countenance lift. I saw just a smidge of confidence come over him, and just when I did, he took off his flip flops and walked to his truck. Digging in the glove box I figured he was fumbling for the pen, but something fell to the floorboard. I looked hard to see what it was, I thought it was a picture. He picked it up and I could see it was. As he looked at the girl, the tears began to stream from his eyes. He quickly shoved it back into the glovebox and walked back towards the tree with the pen in hand. Kneeling down he wrote those numbers, 07-11-2000, and began to look for a place on the tree where those flip-flops would be welcomed. I envisioned the tree empathetic, wishing it could wrap its branches around the man and hold him for a while. I could feel that she wanted him to know someone was there. I knew, and somehow she whispered, that he had left those shoes to say, “I too want to overcome this heartache, this tragedy, I too want to keep fighting.” At that moment, I was so moved by the mystery it seemed only right to sit where the man had sat and exhale the weight of his worries. So I sat, closed my eyes and took several deep breaths wishing the man well every time I blew out. It felt enough. I knew it was time to go. I could have spent another hour or two unlocking the mysteries of her budding fruit, but I was full for now. There’d be another day. As I walked to my car all I could think about was the tree, I was happy for her. I was happy she was here, I was happy she was no longer alone, I was happy that I had stopped, and honored that I had tasted her fruit. She had found her purpose and was budding with life. It was not of her own, but that didn’t matter because she understood that for pear trees to bear fruit they must be pollinated by a different variety. For with a mix of cultivars this tree would produce a harvest. This was only the beginning of her fruit and I couldn’t wait to see and taste her harvest.