The Fig Tree Story

I guess dad fancied himself to be a rancher or a farmer at one point. He had worked on a farm when he was a kid-bucking hay. He was big and very strong for his age. It was good for him and good for the farmer.

He had no money to buy land, he had no inheritance to gain land, he had just this side of no hope to be able to realize that dream. But dreams are free and he kept it alive in the back of his mind and every once in a while the dream would just fall right out of his mouth and we kids would hear about it.

So, since he didn't have a farm or a ranch but was a home owner with a little bit of a back yard, he planted a garden, raised chickens (until the neighbors complained too bitterly and with no animal rights they had to go) and planted whatever tree he could. One tree he eventually planted was a dwarf fig tree. He ordered it from one of those seed mail order catalogs. He dug the hole just right, nourished it just right and watered it just right. It grew. In its fourth year it was nearly five feet tall and it blossomed.

I was enamored with that tree. I don't know if it was because dad had wanted it and showed so much TLC toward it or if I was just fascinated with how different it was from the other plants in the yard. Whatever the reason, after I'd finish weeding in the garden, feeding guinea pigs or cleaning out their cages; I'd go lie down under that tree. Now mind you, there wasn't much shade from it-but it was the thought that counted. I suspect that part of my love of that tree was based on it being one of the first trees mentioned in the Bible.

I noticed when it was flowering and I was sad when the flowers seem to die off and dry up. This was my very first experience with watching fruit grow-really and truly grow. Soon enough there was this tiny little growth-must have been something wrong with the tree I thought because it sure didn't look like a fig-least ways not like one I'd seen pictures of.

Slowly, ever so slowly, those little deformities actually grew into figs. One day I was touching one of them and it fell off the tree into my hand. That was a definite, "I couldda died" moment for me. But I couldn't glue it back on and I hadn't heard dad saying anything about 'his' tree nor about what had been developing on it. Far as I knew, he knew nothing about the figs. So what do you do with a tree-ripened fig, lying in your hands?

Well, I know what I did. I ate it! Soft and sweet and wonderful! Seriously, I have no clue why anyone feels you need to add sugar to figs to make cookies.

Years later I heard from my little sister that dad never could figure out what happened with that poor little tree that wouldn't bear him fruit. Honestly, I only had the figs that first year, all six of them. It was about that next year or so that life got too busy for me to lie under that tree and I never saw it bloom again or bear fruit.

I know this-I certainly love tree-ripened figs!