On Trees, Part 1

An Unfortunate Incident with a Loquat Tree

This might sound like a strange statement, both obvious and random, but I like trees. I really do. Their drawing power to me has slowly grown over the years.

But certain trees stand out more than others.

I mean, they’re all trees and I love how each one is so unique with branches spread in unique ways and different shades of green on the leaves and different shapes of leaves. Each one is a work of art. But there are certain types of trees that stand out to me more and that I usually don’t pass without acknowledging in some way.

These are the flowers of a tree in our front yard, which looks more like a plant sometimes, a large plant.

It is a loquat tree and it is something remarkable that it is still growing.

Why is that remarkable? Because it was run over a couple years back—literally rolled over by a truck after several years of bearing fruit.

We got the tree as a sapling in about 2016. My husband was an in-home care provider for an elderly man who was a bit of a hoarder but he gave my husband this potted plant and so we planted it in the front yard. He said it was a loquat tree and I was excited about that. These are not fruits you usually find in stores but I remember eating them as a child from a neighborhood tree.

The plant grew and it took a couple of years before finally, late one spring, we got a few tart loquats. The next year there were more, and the next year there were more. In late spring of 2020, we could just go out front and pick several fruits and eat them. It was great fun.

But that summer, at about 4:30 in the morning, my husband and I were woken by the sound of a huge bang. A teenage boy (without a license) had driven over our lawn, run over the tree, and smashed into our van.

The van was totaled, and that’s another story … but my more immediate concern was the tree. Call me impractical, and you’d be right. But it’s not every day you have a fruit-bearing loquat tree growing in your front yard. (It’s also not every day that a kid without a license runs over that fruit-bearing loquat tree with his dad’s truck.)

We propped up the tree as best as we could. Watered it. Waited.

A year passed. No flowers in late winter, no fruit in late spring.

Another year passed. No flowers, no fruit.

But this year, it flowered.

And now it’s growing fruit.

I think – I’m sure – that even if it never flowered or bore fruit again, I would keep it there. It wasn’t the tree’s fault it was run over. And since then, it has done its best to do what it does.

Slowly grow. Slowly take in sun and rain and nutrients from the soil.

Slowly unfurl its leaves and wait to let happen what will happen.

But I’m glad, for the tree’s sake as well as ours, that something more is going on, that somehow the sap and the mysterious process is catching hold, that process of sun and water and minerals transforming into a tart yet sweet fruit the color of gold.