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The Lemon Tree
When I was little, 4 or 5 years old maybe, my grandparents used to live in an old house with a huge garden. It was the perfect playground for me and my cousins, there was a sandbox, a pool, and plenty of space to run around, but one of the most eye catching things in that garden was a big lemon tree near the end of the property. Every other Sunday our grandfather would offer us 10 pesos if we went out to pick up lemons. I loved that lemon tree, I loved going out with my grandmother and listen to her stories about my dad while she helped me reach for the fruit, those were the only moments I had alone with her, since we were so many nephews and uncles and aunts. After a few years my grandfather got sick and he wasn’t able to live comfortably in the old house they used to live in, with all the stairs and corridors; so they used the garden’s terrain to build a new house there and sold the old one. Unfortunately that meant that the pool and the sandbox and the lemon tree had to go. I wasn’t there for much of the construction because I was living in another country at the time, only seeing parts of the new house when I visited during the summer and Christmas vacations. The new house didn’t have a garden, only a backyard with a few potted plants. When I was nine and in the new house during summer vacations my grandmother led me to a little tree growing in one of the pots. “Look,” she said, “it’s our lemon tree.” She told me that one of the seeds had fallen in the new house. To this day I don’t know if a seed actually fell by coincidence or if she planted it, either way I think that she treasured those little moments we had together as much as I did. Last Sunday I was at her house for her usual weekly family reunions and I glanced at the tree and realized that it was more than 10 years old. It’s still in the potted plant and I don’t think it’ll ever reach the size of the old one, but it’s still a reminder to spend more time with my loved ones and not take anyone for granted.
