My Mother's Tree

In the years before I was born, my parents built this old house and the barn. They also planted a small row of trees at the then edge of their property. Two apple trees flanking the back gate, an orange tree, and a persimmon tree. The apples, of which one tree still survives, are of an old variety that are good for cooking. The original orange tree is gone, but its offshoots have grown into another one, and still has plenty of oranges in the winter. The persimmon was planted by my mother. She loved the fruit, and hoped to be able to eat her own crop of persimmons one day.

But we left for another country before it started to give fruit. The few times we came back on vacation, it was summer, and even if the tree had fruit, it was still forming. When we moved here, my mother discovered the tree wasn't bearing any persimmons, and never really had. Disappointed, she told my father to cut it, because she wanted to plant another orange tree, and the persimmon would cover the sunlight too much. 

But though the trunk was cut, offshoots appeared and grew, just like with the orange tree a few years later. She decided to let it be for a while, to see what happened. Persimmons are generally expensive, and she was still bent on eating them from her own tree. The new tree grew, but no persimmons were forthcoming. Then my mother became ill, and later died. She never ate her own home-grown persimmons. 

A few years ago, the tree, which we haven't considered cutting down because it simply doesn't bother us, had a couple of green balls that slowly turned yellow, then deep orange. Its first fruits. Since then, every year it has grown some fruits. Perhaps the conditions simply weren't right for it until now, I don't know. I do know that the only person in our house who ever liked persimmons, or kakis, as they're called here, was my mother. She tried to make me eat some back in Boston when I was a child, as part of her campaign to make me eat fruit. I didn't like it at all; it seemed to rub my teeth wrong, and the taste simply wasn't interesting. 

So now, we have persimmons which no one wants, yet I can't bring myself to cut down the tree. We will be cutting down the grape arbors, except the one around the house, which we are keeping for the shade. Our grapes make a poor wine, which we don't like and wouldn't be able to sell. So, the grape arbors are going. Yet, the tree will most likely stay. The birds have started to peck the riper fruits, and I suppose they can have all of them. My mother's dream came true, we have our own persimmons. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to enjoy them.