The Orange Tree

When I was two years old, my family moved from Iowa to California.  My parents found a beautiful home in LA County, In the sweet little town of La Mirada.  The house was a few years old but no one had lived in it yet.  I was told that the owners did landscaping, and this house had many plants, bushes and trees that the other houses in the neighborhood didn't have.  One of those trees was an orange tree.  

Now every year that orange tree got hundreds of buds and every year, every last bud would drop off, and we never even had one orange.

Around the time I was 11, I was in the 6th grade, I became interested in this process.  I started to wonder why the orange tree didn't get any oranges and I decided that I was going to help this tree and this was going to be the year it would produce baskets full of oranges.

I really took care of that tree.  My mom told me to give it egg shells and coffee grounds for nutrients, so I gave it plenty of the tree food.  I watered it every day and I gave my new best friend pep talks.

Just as every year the orange tree was filled with blossoms and just as every year the blossoms dropped off one by one until there was only a handful of blossoms left.  I got a little discouraged but I kept watering it and one by one those blossoms turned into tiny oranges, unfortunately that is as good as it got.  Each little orange dropped off until there was one orange left.  

I'm not sure but I think God looked down on me and had pity because that tiny thing did become an orange. And one morning I got up, went into our beautifully landscaped back yard and I picked my full sized orange.

In the years to follow, my orange tree produced many, many oranges.  I guess the little tree just needed someone to love it.