I was so excited when I found the small, healthy looking tree on clearance in the garden section of Home Depot. The small tag hanging from one of the skinny branches said it was a peach tree.
I love peaches.
I love peach pie, peach cobbler, grilled peaches with vanilla ice cream, and the list could go on and on. Immediately I had visions of peaches falling freely from this tree as it grew tall in my very own backyard. My husband and I had just purchased our first home, and we were anxious to plant trees and flowers into the rich soil of our very own yard. It felt like we had finally arrived into the adult world of mortgages, car pools and neighbors that share our fence and not our wall.
We proudly placed the young tree in our cart and finished our shopping. A few hours later when we were unloading our prized possessions from the back of our Toyota Forerunner one of our neighbors strolled over to say hello. He observed our new purchases, and his face creased with a frown when he noticed our small tree.
“What kind of tree is that?” He asked with confusion.
“It’s a peach tree!” I explained with enthusiasm. “Isn’t it great? I love peaches and it was so cheap!”
The older gentlemen scratched his chin as his face slowly broke out into a sly grin, “Well I know why it was cheap. Peach trees cannot grow here. If you plant that tree it will not survive the first freeze of the year. This is Montana kid, not Georgia.”
I looked at my husband who should have known better because after all he grew up in this arctic tundra. I was after all an LA girl. How was I to know what could grow in Montana and what could not? I would soon learn after only a couple years of living in Big Sky Country that really nothing much can grow in Montana. It’s a harsh environment.
Peach trees need sunshine, mild temperatures and moisture. They need to live in a different climate in order to survive much less produce fruit.
People are really not much different than peach trees. We need the proper environment in order to survive and certainly in order to thrive. We need love, structure, comfort, support, relationships, and grace.
As Christy Irons writes in her article Moving Potential Adopters from “I might” to “I’m In” ;
“The truth is government systems are not, and never have been, good at raising children. Governments are not designed to be parents. Children are organically made to be a part of some sort of family unit. We rant about the over-spending, the under-funding, the educational system, social security…I hear more negatives about government than positives. And yet, we allow them to raise children. And not just any children, these are hurt children. I could argue we are allowing governments to raise the MOST vulnerable members of our society. Damaged children, hidden behind a closed family judicial system, with little to no voice.” www.chronicleofsocialchange.org
Peach trees cannot survive a Montana winter. Peach trees cannot survive a Montana fall for that matter. They need to be planted where they can flourish and grow and produce.
Children must be placed within the secure arms of family. They cannot grow in the harsh environment of a government system.
I could have ignored my neighbor’s sound advice and planted the tree in my yard anyway. I could have watched as the tree died after the first hard freeze of the year.
Instead I chose to return the tree and get my money back. I only want to plant things that have a chance of living. Planting a peach tree in Montana will not reap a harvest of peaches.
Allowing a government to raise hurt children will yield nothing but problems…the harvest will be nothing but heartbreaking. Peach blossoms covered in snow. Branches broken under the weight of a hard freeze. Death the end result after the seed sowed in spring.
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