My Story: Granny's Orange Tree



Back in her heyday my grandmother was a dressmaker and fashion designer of note. She set up shop in the Sydney suburb of Bondi and the loaded eastern suburbs society matrons would regularly visit her. She'd dress them in high fashion for next to nothing and, of course, they loved it. Back then, even the rich knew the value of money. But "the Granny," as I always called her, had another fan. She was idolised by one of the seamstresses - a young Greek girl. One day the girl and the Granny were having lunch when the Granny peeled an orange to reveal a sprouting leaf, like a mini orange tree, growing inside. "That's how navel oranges grow," the girl excitedly told the Granny.

"If you plant it, it will grow into an orange tree!" And that's exactly what the Granny did, putting the delicate sprout into a small red pot. Well, the sprout took hold and years later had turned into a tiny tree. Still in its red pot, it now lived on the kitchen windowsill of the Granny's flat, where it copped a few measly hours of sunlight each day. It was effectively a bonsai tree and I used to be fascinated by the perfect miniature. Checking out the tiny orange tree was definitely one of the highlights of visiting the Granny.

Later, when my parents bought a house in the northern beaches of Sydney, the Granny followed us over the Harbour Bridge to be near us. She moved into a flat in Manly and the orange tree took that as a signal to start growing. Soon it was too big for its pot and the Granny planted it in the backyard of her new place. It must have grown to about 45 centimetres before the nasty old battle-axe who owned the block of flats told the Granny that her tree had to go. The Granny was heart-broken. As the tree was now too big to go back in the pot, Mum offered to plant it in our front yard.

Now, that was a very bad move. Mum plonked the tree right in the middle of our football field. Sure, it wasn't much of a footy field - with the split-level front yard sloping seriously downhill and the rockery encroaching on the try-line down the eastern end - but even so, the tree made it harder to play. I lost count of the number of crash tackles that poor tree sustained, and the number of times my brother and I made hasty repairs with sticky tape - sometimes even employing Perkins Paste to aid the recovery. Then one day Mum wisely decided to move the orange tree - its third replanting. A nice spot was found out of harm's way under my elder sister's bedroom window.

I never really thought any more about the tree, or what a hard life it had endured, but I remember an incident years later when I crashed my motorbike into it in the early hours of the morning. Maybe I shouldn't have been riding the bike in the condition I was in, but more damage was done to the bike than sustained by the tree.

Only then did I notice how it had become a massive, thick-trunked tree that was growing taller every year. In truth, the tree must have been a dud, because in the thirty-odd years it had been growing, it had never produced one orange - not even a bud.

By now I was growing up and out as well, running a business and experiencing life to the fullest. I suggested to my parents that maybe I should move back into the family home to save some money. "No way José!" was their reply.

Then Mum suggested I should consider sharing a house with the Granny as her evil landlord would always put the rent up by exactly the same amount as any meagre increase the government would toss the pensioners' way.

It sounded preposterous at first - a big, hairy, ugly bikie living with his granny. But it was a great set-up. The Granny didn't mind cleaning and cooking for me and my rough-neck bikie mates who'd turn up, and I did not mind keeping company with the Granny and helping her pay bills with ease for the first time in a long while.

Then the Granny got sick. Very sick. She had the big C and was given only months to live, so we moved her into my parents' home to be near the family. Mum set her up in the sunniest room of the house - my sister's old bedroom - where she spent some of her final days looking out over her orange tree. After her funeral, I was at Mum's place and she dragged me down the front yard excitedly. "Look at this!" she yelled, pointing at the Granny's orange tree.

There, halfway up the tree, was one solitary bud.

Now you don't have to be a rabid believer - and even if you are, there's no point being silly about it - but I couldn't help thinking that this was the Granny's spirit showing off.

Later on in the season, the bud grew into a scrawny little orange - although the only giveaway to relate it to the type you see in the fruit shop was its colouring. But it was the Granny's orange.

Now, you might think that was the end of the story, but it wasn't. For months Mum had pondered where to scatter the Granny's ashes. Sprinkle them on Bondi Beach? Manly Beach? Where? And then the obvious place came to her, and she sprinkled the Granny's ashes round the base of the orange tree.

The next season, the most amazing thing happened. Hundreds of buds sprouted from almost every branch, and lots and lots of oranges grew from the buds. Of course, they were all as bitter as gall, but they were oranges nonetheless. And they would have made the Granny proud.

I often wonder if the hard life the tree endured affected its fruit production. Maybe the salt air where we lived was too harsh. Whatever the reason, it doesn't matter. It was the Granny's orange tree and her memory will live on in it for ever.

Kelly John Ashton, 49, lives in Collaroy, New South Wales, with his wife Jane, both "life-long motorcyclists," and 12-month-old daughter BillieJane.

From Reader's Digest Magazine