Letter: Tomatoes – Harbingers of Hope

We lost everything. 

Very early in the morning this past April 3, the phone rang. Our place of business was on fire.

It’s the call you never want to receive.

A police officer approached where I stood watching the flames rage against the dark sky. And over the roar of the inferno he said, “There’s no easy way to say this. It’s gone. It’s all gone.”

It was.

Charred timbers, collapsed walls, rubble, and ruin everywhere.

And tears. Lots and lots of tears.

Tractors would pulverize – chewing and grinding and macerating – what little was left following countless dump trucks departing with the remnants of memories.

“Does anybody know what this bush is doing here? Has someone been watering this?”

Where once had gathered the community to celebrate birthdays, and recreational opportunities, and even a wedding, now our family huddled around a plant smack dab in the middle of nothing but hard packed dirt and rock.

Then one of the family thought she’d remembered having a package of tomato plant seeds on a shelf that maybe somehow had survived the fire. And maybe had been buried by the tractor. 

But the little tomatoes now growing so profusely in the middle of such devastation, how were they watered?

The tears.  Maybe the tears.