He wasn’t born there, but there he was. He sat anonymously among the trees and plants and people who spoke some other language, wondering what the fuck had happened to bring him to this place. We was raised poor but surrounded by a wealth of friendship. One day, out of nowhere it seemed, he had been forced to leave all he knew to exist in a place with nothing but trees and plants and people he could not understand.
No one asked him his opinion about moving from his urban-ish freedom to the confines of a farm. He felt alive riding his bike with his friends, free to roam the streets of his small neighborhood, playing games and plotting pranks. His mother would give him money to ride his bike to the local deli to get small groceries. At times he would be allowed a small treat for his effort. The only instructions were, “Bring me the change!”
Then his mother remarried, and everything for him had changed. Now we was confined to the vastness of this new place, with nothing to plot and noone to plot it with. He just sat there, contemplating each of the 8 years of his life, wondering what he had done to deserve this purgatory. It wasn’t bad, mind you, but it was different and as he was to discover later in life, change was hard for him.
Later he found he hadn’t moved a great distance, but through 8 year old eyes it seemed as if he had moved a galaxy away. When he’d ask to go see his friends, he was told that it was too far and to forget them as though they had never existed. The phone would not be able to call those left behind. The mail would not deliver his letters. Nothing, it seemed existed before this new place where nothing but trees and plants and people who spoke a different language could be found.
The Peach Tree
In his loneliness he wandered about, trying to figure out what all of this new shit was. What became his new “family” didn’t seem to want to know him. He felt an outsider, and they didn’t seem to care. Everywhere he went he felt alone and misunderstood, like a foreigner in his own skin, alive in a place minus all he had ever known.
“This sucks,” he said as he kicked the trunk of a peach tree. He sat under it’s shade, playing with the hard and rotting fruit that had been stripped to the ground below.
A man, darker and larger than most the boy had seen, walked up and smiled. The boy sat, staring at the man, unsure of what to do or how to do it.
“Duraznos,” the man said, his smile beaming with excitement.
“Huh?” the boy replied.
The man reached up and pulled a peach from the tree, and sat beside the boy.
“Duraznos”
“Dur-azz-nose,” the boy repeated, the best he could.
The man laughed. “Si! Yes! Muy bien!”
The boy just shrugged his shoulders with a look that said “I have no idea what you are saying.” The man understood and repeated, “duraznos.”
The boy understood that. “A peach,” he said. The man laughed and said, “Si, a peeeech.”
The boy and the man laughed. It was the first time the boy had laughed in days.
The man pointed at the peach and then at the boy’s mouth. He handed the peach to the boy, and the boy took a bite. The peach was delicious, and the boy took another bite. He then handed the peach back to the man, who also took a bite.
“Mmmmmmm,” the man said. Now that the boy understood.
Someone yelled for the man in that language the boy did not understand. The man got up, swatted the grass from his pants, and smiled.
“Duraznos,” the boy said.
The man smiled, and replied, “peeeech”. He then gave the boy two thumbs up and went back to work.
A Lesson
The boy walked home, not feeling as sad as he had. Later, as a man, he never forgot the soul who spoke a different language nor the kindness he had offered. The man didn’t care that the boy didn’t look like him or speak his language. He just saw a boy who looked sad and decided to brighten his day. The boy decided to return the favor the best he could. The man shared a durazno, and the boy shared a peach.
The remarkable thing is that kindness, no matter what it is called, means the same thing to everyone. It also tastes sweet, and gives those who need it most just a little taste of something wonderful. And that was the lesson. The boy didn’t need to understand someone to know kindness, and the man didn’t seek anything but some kindness in return. They both just needed to show up, and change the world.
““Your acts of kindness are iridescent wings of divine love, which linger and continue to uplift others long after your sharing.” ~Rumi.