We planted this pear tree in 1992, the year my two sons were born. It was under six feet tall at the time. Now Matthew is over six feet tall and the tree is approximately 32 feet in height. Watching it change from season to season (white, green, gold, brown), I love the feeling of steadfastness it represents while people and things in our lives come and go through the years. Its branches hold untold nests, songbirds, and the occasional squirrel. It is greeted in the mornings and we bid it goodnight after walking the Tibbies before bedtime. The tree has become an old and valued friend...and today it looks particularly spectacular!
Growing up in Iowa, virtually everyone important in my life sat, at one time or another, around one of my grandmothers' kitchen tables. In college, my world widened, I moved to Indiana, and I began to notice that fewer of my new acquaintances even knew my grandmothers. Last March it forever changed when Grandma Ohl passed away and April was the first time I did not have a grandmother residing in this world. As long as she was alive, despite the Alzheimer's, there was still that hope of being around her kitchen table once again. I am thinking that there must be more memories for my family around our kitchen table...something a little more difficult to achieve these days with distances between families, generations, and schedules. Renewed focus in this area. This weekend is Easter and our boys will be dining, visiting, and playing cards and games around their grandmother's kitchen table. It unites people and generations and yet we usually think so little of it. It wasn't until my ex-sister-in-law reflected sadly, "I can't believe that I won't be sitting around their table anymore and that someone else will be sitting in my chair from now on," that I stopped to think of the importance of that table and the relationships gathered together at any given time. I have never taken it for granted since that day, and I hope this inspires a renewed appreciation for the simplest of gatherings around the tables, holiday or everyday.