In 2013, just a few months before my husband Dean passed away, he planted an apple tree in our backyard.
I still remember that afternoon.
We had spent hours working together, digging into the soil and trying to find the perfect place for it. Dean was never the kind of man who rushed things. He believed good things needed patience.
When we finished, he wiped the dirt from his hands, looked at the tiny tree, and smiled.
“Give it time,” he told me. “It’ll surprise you.”
I smiled back.
I had no idea how much those words would eventually mean to me.
Two Years of Nothing
After Dean died, the tree became more than just a tree.
It became one of the last things we had done together.
I watered it.
I protected it during the cold months.
I trimmed the small branches when they needed attention.
But for two whole years, nothing happened.
No flowers.
No apples.
No sign that it would ever become the beautiful tree Dean had imagined.
Friends suggested I remove it.
“It isn’t producing anything,” one neighbor told me.
