Today while I tried to work from the home office I tried to ignore the noise of the electric saw. The damn machine worked incessantly for several hours. All the time I thought about all the blood that was spilling from the apple trees.
I wanted to run there and scream so they would stop.
Those apple trees were special. They were there long before my first child was born. They witnessed the lives of many families way before mine and witnessed and rejoiced the view of so many stories that passed by.
Their old owners looked after them with such zeal …
Every end of the cherished summertime it was a plettora of juices, pies, and so much apples that got cared and frozen, dried out.
Our sheep always got a few buckets of fresh apple daily. It was like a mat on the soil. It was as if the trees said, here take some.
I loved a special apple there, and I longed to taste it again. I don´t even know it’s name, but yesterday I commented on how I loved that special apple, which dyed red inside when you take a bit! Gorgeous red paint!
My neighbor’s apple trees
She was an old lady who had turned to be like my children’s grandmother. She presented them with Easter eggs and Christmas gifts They had such a sense of humor! She and her partner (my husband’s new old best friend).
Despite being diabetics, they kept the freezer always full of ice cream, cakes and cookies and offered a tremendous feast of goodies in the afternoons when we and the kids got together to take a tea cup and laugh, every now and then.
There in that kitchen, how many funny stories she and her “boyfriend” (the one who in her young years did propose to her and got refused by her! I never got the chance to question why. She chose a man 25 years older than herself. But it doesn’t matter now. They had their time again, in their 80s … a lot of children and grandchildren he got, she got only one dotter and one grandson). But now they finally got each other and what delicious laughs they had.
Our friendship lasted for almost 18 years.
She knew my husband before me, as I moved in he was living here for 15 years. So she was there when he wondered about finding a new wife. She was there when our first kid was born, and when the second came as well.
We were like family. We came by without making an appointment. It was just knocking on the door and being invited to sit in the kitchen, have tea, have a small talk.
The old man liked to sip a “spirits” sometimes and loved having someone to share it with.
Later could the old lady no longer walk, for many years she tried, but was unable to adapt with her removed leg. He took care of her, all the time! cleaned the house, fixed the yard, took her to the groceries. And he made everything with such affection!
After a while she became too weak and it was painful to know she would never come back from the hospital.
Weeks after the burial of his beloved (from whom he was prevented from attending due to a domestic accident) he too passed away. It feels almost like as if I’ve seen this film before.
I really miss those two.
I hope they met again. But this time with no pain and just good memories. I hope they did not see the tragedy they made on their beautiful garden here today.
Seeing that little house with the severed trees gives me a heart squeeze. I do not want to see. I don’t want to go over there anymore.
The noise of the electric saw corrodes. it hurts, destroys, rapes the soul of those who stay.
