The Interesting Timing Of Things

My maternal grandfather's hands holding for me a lesson soon to be learned.

He still embraces me... from afar only for the moment.

It was only a few weeks after my maternal grandfather passed that the guava tree also died.

I've learned by experience that there is always a proper space for reasonable doubt.

I've also learned by experience that always leaning on that reason (man being fallible and often times subject to an unreasonably unreasonable level of reason), always searching for more rational answers only comforts a lingering pessimism... a pessimism that blinds what is otherwise clear.

The tree had likely been there for several decades after he and my grandmother moved in, planted by their hands.

Its roots system deep enough underground to sap any necessary moisture for sustenance.

Being a younger man at the time with my head in dark clouds, I took many things for granted... even the fruits of my grandfather's labor derived from the sweet nectar of that guava tree.

Regret is painful.

Yet even at that time when I was trying to ignore all things spiritually significant, drowning in my own salty sea of despair and doubt, that day the tree was noticeably dead and collapsing was a striking reminder of many things.

I had learned to recognize life's lessons despite them being too painful to face at the moment.

I have been foolish in the past, but I was not made to be a fool.

Another chapter in my life began that day in a way I had not anticipated rationally, but somehow knew in the back of my mind would come about regardless of my choices and my resistance.

My grandfather grew up on his family's farm, and he was expert in the natural things of life.

I was too arrogant to take notice of the wealth of information he had to impart to me.

Now I yearn for such ancient wisdom built upon generations of people who lived from the land and built their lives with their own hands.

Knowing, planning, tilling, planting, watering, pruning, harvesting, reading nature's signs and interpreting them correctly, enjoying the natural patterns of life and expecting their blessings.

I yearn because this vessel of mine is headed to such a life... a return to nature if you will.

Leaving the city my grandfather headed to in search for work and a life after the farm.

One generation between us, 55 earthly years, and as he sought out the city to built a life... this man searches the countryside to find a life.