The year was 1975. Bellbottoms were all the rage and my parents had finally bought a home on the east side of Buffalo, NY, after renting my entire life. I’m not complaining that we rented ‘flats,’ as they were called back then. Each one holds memories, both good and bad, of my childhood. But this home, at 45 Weber Ave., was the original home on the street (or at least that’s what I have grown up believing!) When I tried to look up the history of the house, I couldn’t find anything. So, for the record, I choose to believe it’s true. The nails in the attic were hand-hewn, and it looked like it could have been built in the 1830s, as my dad reassured me when I called him. The home has since burned down but the memories of growing up there and then living in the upper flat for six months back in 2000 will always be with me.
So why did I title this, “I’ve Become THAT Woman”? Well, for good reason. When we lived on Weber, we had a neighbor, her name escapes me after all these years, but she owned the house next door, and she had THE most beautifully landscaped back yard, filled with blooming hostas and other large flowers that she would water EVERY DAY. I would chit chat with her and deep down I’d envy how neat and orderly her yard looked as she stood there, watering her plants.
The day we moved in, I remember slamming the back screen door, flying down those four, really wide stairs, skipping down the skinny sidewalk that led into a veritable jungle of grass that was wildly overgrown. the sidewalk ended at the entrance to a small, white shed with a tiny window on the left side, next to the door. (My sister and I would later paint a scene on the side of that shed, declaring our teenage devotion to Jesus.)
But the thing that made my heart sing most was the two large peach trees and a cherry tree, each loaded with fruit but covered with ants!
That scene is just as alive in me today as it was then and I am convinced that my own fruit of becoming a gardener/farmer began that day. A small seed of ‘what could be’ began to grow in me.
My dad cut down those three trees, and just like when they sold their furniture to the pawnshop for money, I cried. I was angry both times because they did something and didn’t give any real explanation as to why it had to be that way. To prune, clean up, and make the trees better was not an immediate priority for them and besides, there were many more important things that needed to be done…like a sink in the kitchen!
Looking back now, I realize that with four kids, no experience in the care of fruit trees, no clue how to manage their money, and alcohol as the uninvited tenant that worked overtime but never gave us anything towards the mortgage, the odds were stacked against them. They did the best with the tools they had and I am thankful to them for their love and devotion to making our house a home.
So what does any of that have to do with anything?
It’s been forty years since I left that house on Weber Avenue but the seeds that my neighbor planted in my heart, along with those peach trees bursting with juicy fruit, have contributed to who I’ve become. She had no idea of the influence her life has had on mine. We don’t really ever know, do we, what people glean from the seeds we plant by how we live?
I wonder if the people who formerly lived in our home and planted those fruit trees ever stood across the fence from my neighbor as I did, sharing their gardening challenges and encouraging one another not to give up. I bet my neighbor was even sadder to see those trees chopped down than I was. She’d watched them grow from the start.
Just yesterday, as I stood in my own yard watering my flowers and garden, I said, out loud, with a chuckle in my voice, “I’ve become THAT woman!” May the seeds I plant by the way I live have eternally healthy fruit.
Perhaps, one day, I’ll have her as a neighbor in heaven and can finally thank her!
