One fruit in a tree!

This is the only fruit in our guava tree in the garden as of now.

It is a five feet tall tree with three main branches, which is now two years old since we planted it. It is a growing tree as there are new shoots in all branches. This fruit is the forerunner of many fruits in the future, in the years to come ! It is only a beginning of life of fruitfulness for the  tree!

I get to hear stories from parents of how they tend to trivialise small developmental changes in their children as they are fixed on bigger expectations. 

There re seven mango trees and five lime trees, all of which do not yield any fruit for a while now!

But they grow and new shoots and flowers appear, but not fruits.

This is what causes us to be anxious! A tree is worth only when it yields its fruits. 

The life of the tree in itself is some significance and not just fruit alone! We expect the trees to give  their fruits because we plant and tend them. 

I suspect that it is the same utilitarian view, we as parents have towards our children sometimes.    

'Your children are not yours' a well known poem by Kahlil Gibran written in 1923,  is worth revisiting:

"Your children are not your children,

They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you. 

You may give them your love but not your thoughts

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls. 

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows form which your children's arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite

and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;

Foe even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable"

Somehow there is a distortion of view on parenting. We seem to own and possess our children that we practice an overbearing presence in their lives. We nurture them to grow up and when they grow up we tend to control them with our expectations. 

Even during the growing up years, we burden them with our choice of destiny for them. 

A tree is a tree whether it bears fruit or not. Sometimes it bears only one fruit. All of these are only our expectations or thoughts. 

Even a tree is  more than our thoughts and expectations. How much more our children!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)



Photoblog: childdevelopmentashirvad.blogspot.com