SLEEPING FRUIT TREES

I sat in the waiting room of the radiologist office in the hospital, listening to the wife of someone who has lung cancer. Her beloved husband, Frank, had been diagnosed in October. Their eight year old grandson, Frank Jr., had accidentally landed on top of grandpa’s chest during a camping trip in the backyard, kneeing him and knocking the breath out of him. He laid in the tent for several minutes, gasping and choking, simultaneously aware of the horror stricken look on the young boy’s face.


After comforting the child, telling him he “…didn’t hurt grandpa bad and that it was an accident,” Frank was acutely aware that something was wrong when the swelling didn’t go down, the pain radiating from his chest and making it harder and harder for him to breath hadn’t stopped, even several days later.

Upon examination by the family doctor, they told Frank to get an x-ray. It was then they discovered the huge mass covering the front of grandpa’s chest.

There were no symptoms, no clue that something was wrong. Life was good. He and his wife had planned to take their annual trip in the motor home the following January, a trek down the east coast to Florida, to visit their daughter.

Instead, they were in the hospital and Grandpa Frank was having a massive tumor removed from his lung. Miraculously, he was going to be fine.

Frank, Jr. had saved his life.

“I am so grateful for the second chance.” he said simply, and then slipped his arms into the winter coat held by his wife. She smiled at me, and they turned to go home.

Sometimes, Stephen and I will take a car ride to no where, trusty digital camera always in hand. We drove out by the apples orchards, so prevalent in Wayne County, and enjoyed the blanketed silence of the snowdrifts. They look ominous this time of year, bare branches so stark against the clean white snow. Frighteningly beautiful.

“Sleeping Fruit Trees” he said to me with a wink, knowing that it would sound like a great title for a column. I nodded, not knowing what else to say. I wondered how I could work what I was feeling into a column, as he took some pictures.

They show the promise of new life every spring, with the arrival of the sun high in the sky and the renewal of apple blossoms, bringing forth new fruit for yet another year.

I thought about that day in the waiting room, wondering why the memory of it resurfaced now. There were many others who sat in the waiting room with me that day, waiting their turn under the ray gun. They have accepted what has happened to them in their lives, but do not surrender to it. They joke and smile, offering comfort to those around them who are new, blowing goodbye kisses to those who have completed their treatments.

None of them had ever had the inclination this insidious interloper was amongst them. No one among them let it win. They told me blonde jokes and laughed at themselves, with frank and candid statements, staring down the beast and slaying it with a smile. One woman with breast cancer said offhandedly “Well, at least I don't have to worry about my nipples showing through my sweater anymore.” I could only marvel at her confidence and laugh along with her at the irony.

We are all like those sleeping fruit trees I thought to myself as we drove along. Something so insignificant as a blow to the chest or a crick in the neck can alert you that something is drastically different, if only we pay attention.

How precious life is and how lucky we are to be able to see the fruit trees blossoming, yet again for another year.

May God bless the “Sleeping Fruit Trees.” They are a wonderful reminder to me of the goodness of people, the kindness and willingness of strangers to reach out to each other, to comfort and console, in what might be their own darkest hour.