Beyond the Thorns: Life Lessons from a Lemon Tree

This Meyer lemon tree was a gift from my family for my 40th birthday. My brother-in-law's parents have a Meyer Lemon tree at their Arizona home, and I thought the idea of having one would be neat. So they bought me one, and I love it. Unfortunately, it gets too cold in North Texas to have it in the ground. So it has to stay in that huge, heavy pot. It's 5 years old now. Last year I only got 3 lemons off of it because I forgot to water it most of the year. This year I stayed on top of the watering and was blessed with 19 big, beautiful, juicy Meyer lemons (they're 80% lemon, 20% orange, so not quite as sour—I describe them as smooth).

I'm pretty proud of this tree, and I baby it. It's usually okay outside until the temperature starts getting into the low 30s. Then it gets dragged to the back porch, and I leave it really close to the house. The thing weighs over 100 pounds in that pot! When the temps get close to the 20s, I pull out a janky makeshift heat lamp, clamp it to the edge of the pot, and blast it with heat. If it gets into the low 20s, I have to drag it inside the house. That's a chore that I hate, but it's necessary. When inside, it lives near the window and usually gets confused and starts to bloom. The blooms smell like the sweetest Louisiana summer honeysuckles. If it blooms inside, it usually affects the lemons it produces when I put it back outside in the early spring.

Last winter it never came inside the house. I kept lots of water on it, and we got 19 lemons! That's a bumper crop compared to other years.

This morning I got up unusually early so I could get to ORF via DAL and BWI to meet up with my wife and family for Thanksgiving. As I'm cooking breakfast, I hear the TV weather guy talk about a possible freeze this week while we're gone. I look out and see all of those beautiful and hopefully juicy lemons and realize that if they stay on the tree and it freezes, it'll be doom. It takes these things 8 months or so of ripening to become their best. I couldn't bear the thought of losing the crop!

So, here I am. In a hurry, in my backyard at 5:30 am wearing a parka, t-shirt, gym shorts, and flip-flops, harvesting lemons. Quite a sight. There are way too many lemons to carry, but I'm forcing it like I do when I've got a dozen bags of groceries and refuse to make a second trip back to the car. As I'm in the midst of this hurricane of calamity, I realize that in its 5th year of life, this child of a tree has started growing thorns. Now, I'm really being tested. Pain, cold, hurried, clumsy, balancing, and now a tiny bit bloody.

All the bloody lemons make it into the house. I look over and realize I forgot my bread was toasting on the stove. I lift up the bread, and it's cold and buttery. I forgot to turn on the stovetop. I look up and thank God.

Then I realize it's going to be several days until I get home. I stare at the pile of lemons as I realize they've got to be squeezed. Right now. All we've got is an old-fashioned, grin-and-bear-it style twist-on, little-pedestal-thingy juicer. Thirty-eight lemon halves and go! A quart and a few ounces later, I have the most beautiful yellow juice of the tart gods you've ever seen. That's the most juice I've ever gotten out of that little tree. I stare at the Mason jar with extreme satisfaction and a now-perfectly-cooked breakfast ready to scarf down.

Now I sit on a bench at DAL among the chaos of humanity trying to get to faraway places to eat a possibly dry bird and some nostalgic pie, getting oddly teary-eyed. A little misty because, like a pallet of Acme bricks falling from the sky on that brown-furred rascal, that little lemon tree became a clear example of what real personal growth looks like.

Seeds. Love. Patience. Nurturing. Little yield. Love. Sour. Cheap fertilizer. Impatience. Sunshine. Hydration. Love. Advice. Love. Consistency. The right fertilizer.  Celebration. Love. Neglect. Grace. Bounty. Growth. Pain. Blood. Sweat. Tears.  Glorious harvest.

To get the fruit, it doesn't take just water. You’ve got to be moved a little bit.  Then moved back.  Consistency is a key ingredient.  Even then, there will be seasons of little yield, moments of getting stuck that produce blood.  Sometimes you think you’re about to be burned, then you get saved by God himself!  The harvest of fruit can still be a little sour.  But, just on the other side of that discomfort is everything you’ve ever wanted.  A big, beautiful, bountiful, juicy harvest awaits and it still needs a little bit of sweetness added sometimes.

Now, time for fertilizer.