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 to...