The pear tree that I planted over a decade ago is heavy with fruit right now. I didn’t make the time to “thin it out” as I should have and, when I looked out the window this morning, I noticed the tree loaded down, its branches straining under the weight of hundreds of pears.
A peach tree planted the same year, on the other hand, simply died this summer. Its “season of life” was over.

There are days or months or years when we blossom, bloom and thrive like this amazing pear tree, and there will be the day when our physical lives are over, like the peach tree.

Although trees and humans, obviously, aren’t the same physically, both have a start (sometimes planned and sometimes unplanned), a “life” and an end. Both “grow”—some with lots of love and nurturing and some with very little care or attention. That pear tree needed certain things in order to get to the place where its ripe fruit was ready to be picked and enjoyed. First, it needed to be planted. It needed rain and sun. It needed some set of conditions, that I in my horticultural ignorance can’t list, in order to flourish.

Between the beginning and end of our lives, we’re a lot like this amazing pear tree.
This year the tree had a pretty wonderful season. Some years, it’s produced pears that were inedible. 
Sometimes we’re heavy with the “fruit” of our lives and sometimes we’re heavy with sorry or pain or anger or hurt.
This tree’s branches have to bear a lot of weight.
Likewise, we “bear” a lot too. Sometimes we bear good news and joy but there are days when we bear the weight of the world on our shoulders.
A pear tree can be laden with fruit or it can be overwhelmed and break under the load.
We can be laden with joy or laden with pain. Our “fruit” to the world can be nourishing and sweet or it can be caustic and bitter.

When I really see nature, in its beauty and grace, rather than simply look through it or past it, I am amazed and in awe.
I have that reaction to many people too. Yesterday, my granddaughter Lauren turned ten years old. She’s been here—on earth—for 2,653 days. In that period of time she has delivered more messages of joy, laughter, kindness and love than I can count. She is a living example of bearing fruit that lifts up our world.

I want to do better at being a bearer of good and beauty and joy—like Lauren and like my pear tree—and so the journey continues.
Kay

©2015 Peace Full Home™/Intentional Living

p.s. from “The Checklist from Z to A”: #23.  Opt for time with a friend over time with a TV; this may seem like common sense, but we sometimes forget that relationships are more important than watching the world on a screen (not matter how big it is).