"If thou wilt do good, yea, and hold out faithful to the end,
thou shalt be saved in the kingdom of God,
which is the greatest of all the gifts of God;
for there is no gift greater than the gift of salvation."
(Doctrine and Covenants 6:13)
Autumn always brings forward memories of home; memories of apples, walnuts and honey. Maybe this is why the high schools and universities always hold their homecoming events in the Fall.
The home in which I grew up had an apple tree in the front yard. I loved that apple tree! When I was a child I would climb up into the tree and stay there for hours reading, writing or doing a handicraft. It wasn't a large enough tree in which to build a fort, but boy, the apples were the best in town! They would always ripen in about September and we could hardly wait to eat them, along with some neighbors and strangers who would walk by on the sidewalk and help themselves to the fruit. That used to make my father angry because it was dishonest to him and he hated dishonesty. One of the things that irritated my father the most about our apple tree situation was when the children from across the street would watch to see that we were not at home and then help themselves to several of the apples, but rather than eating them they would line them up across the busy street in front of our house and watch the cars run over them and smash them. As you can imagine, this made my father livid. I kind of think that was the purpose the children had in doing what they did all along - to make my father mad. There was absolutely nothing he could do about it, especially after he arrived home to find a line of smashed apples in the street in front of our houses. I think he spoke to the children's parents about the situation, but they never did anything to prevent it. To my Depression Era father, it was a terrible waste of precious food. My father worked hard to maintain the integrity of the apples on that tree. He pruned it, sprayed it and nurtured it so as to produce the best crop he possibly could from it. In fact, one of the only memories my children have of my father and visiting their house was when he got angry at them for losing their toys in the tree and climbing it to get them down. It was his baby. One of the great things about the relationship between my father and this apple tree was the fact that we could never eat or preserve all of the fruit that it produced, so my father would load some of the apples into 5 gallon buckets and deliver them to friends and neighbors in the area. It is rather funny because he would get so angry when the apples were stolen, but when he gave them away, well, that was a different story. Sadly the apple tree was cut down a few years after my father died and we sold the house. The next occupant neglected the tree and it finally died and had to be removed. Perhaps it too mourned the passing of my father in its own way.
One of the other trees that we had on our property was located in the back yard of our home. It was a Black Walnut tree. I remember the day my father planted that tree as a sapling. I remember asking him how big he thought it would get, and if it would get big enough to shade the back side of the house. He said that he imagined that it would, but it would take a long time to get there. My father cared for that tree as he did the apple tree and other trees on the property. He sprayed it, pruned it and cared for it and, like the apple tree, it produced an overabundance of walnuts that my father would gather and lay on newspaper in the basement of our house to dry out. Once the hulls were dried he could take them off of the nuts and would crack the nuts and put them in jars, or simply take the whole nuts, and deliver them along with the apples to neighbors and friends. It was a real source of joy to my father to be able to help provide for his neighbors and friends, and he enjoyed the visits that went along with the deliveries. My father loved to talk and could find friends or make friends most anywhere he went.
The other item that I always think of in conjunction with the apples and the walnuts is honey. My father helped to manage a honey production plant that was owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was part of the church's welfare system. When my father retired it became like another job for him to go down to the plant and oversee the operations and production there. It made him feel needed and was a source of pride for him. It was a sad day when the production was moved to Welfare Square in Salt Lake City and they decided to shut down his honey plant. It was like he was fired from a job, and he grieved it. I, and many others, were recipients of jars of honey produced at that plant. He was very proud of the job he and others did there.
At my father's funeral his friend and Home Teacher (for those who know what that is) spoke. He brought some visual aids to help him with his talk: apples, walnuts and a jar of honey :-). In his talk he used them as symbols for some important lessons of life, lessons that my father knew and understood well. The apples, he said, symbolized "the sweet taste of service". The walnuts represented "the hard knocks of life and enduring to the end". And the honey, he said, represented "the sweetness of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and his Atonement". It was a beautiful talk and one that I remember well. I have it on a CD that was recorded of that service and I listen to it occasionally, when I am missing my father and want to be reminded of his legacy. A legacy that has become a great blessing in my life. I watched my father serve others with love and compassion. I watched him and my mother endure many of the hard knocks of life, yet they both endured faithfully to the end. I know that both of them understood and applied the Atonement of Jesus Christ in their lives, and because of that Atonement I know that I will one day be reunited with them and "live together in love".
My father passed away near Thanksgiving of 2005. In tribute to him each Thanksgiving I make a special salad that contains - you guessed it - apples, walnuts and honey! It is a sweet reminder to be thankful for the wonderful legacy of a wonderful father, friend and mentor who is greatly missed in my daily life.
Homecoming (Jim Brickman)
http://youtu.be/zp4a0Cmn4ag
One of the other trees that we had on our property was located in the back yard of our home. It was a Black Walnut tree. I remember the day my father planted that tree as a sapling. I remember asking him how big he thought it would get, and if it would get big enough to shade the back side of the house. He said that he imagined that it would, but it would take a long time to get there. My father cared for that tree as he did the apple tree and other trees on the property. He sprayed it, pruned it and cared for it and, like the apple tree, it produced an overabundance of walnuts that my father would gather and lay on newspaper in the basement of our house to dry out. Once the hulls were dried he could take them off of the nuts and would crack the nuts and put them in jars, or simply take the whole nuts, and deliver them along with the apples to neighbors and friends. It was a real source of joy to my father to be able to help provide for his neighbors and friends, and he enjoyed the visits that went along with the deliveries. My father loved to talk and could find friends or make friends most anywhere he went.
The other item that I always think of in conjunction with the apples and the walnuts is honey. My father helped to manage a honey production plant that was owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was part of the church's welfare system. When my father retired it became like another job for him to go down to the plant and oversee the operations and production there. It made him feel needed and was a source of pride for him. It was a sad day when the production was moved to Welfare Square in Salt Lake City and they decided to shut down his honey plant. It was like he was fired from a job, and he grieved it. I, and many others, were recipients of jars of honey produced at that plant. He was very proud of the job he and others did there.
At my father's funeral his friend and Home Teacher (for those who know what that is) spoke. He brought some visual aids to help him with his talk: apples, walnuts and a jar of honey :-). In his talk he used them as symbols for some important lessons of life, lessons that my father knew and understood well. The apples, he said, symbolized "the sweet taste of service". The walnuts represented "the hard knocks of life and enduring to the end". And the honey, he said, represented "the sweetness of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and his Atonement". It was a beautiful talk and one that I remember well. I have it on a CD that was recorded of that service and I listen to it occasionally, when I am missing my father and want to be reminded of his legacy. A legacy that has become a great blessing in my life. I watched my father serve others with love and compassion. I watched him and my mother endure many of the hard knocks of life, yet they both endured faithfully to the end. I know that both of them understood and applied the Atonement of Jesus Christ in their lives, and because of that Atonement I know that I will one day be reunited with them and "live together in love".
My father passed away near Thanksgiving of 2005. In tribute to him each Thanksgiving I make a special salad that contains - you guessed it - apples, walnuts and honey! It is a sweet reminder to be thankful for the wonderful legacy of a wonderful father, friend and mentor who is greatly missed in my daily life.
Homecoming (Jim Brickman)
http://youtu.be/zp4a0Cmn4ag
