My fig tree came back, just like we all can
The columnist's fig tree this month. Credit: Michael Dobie
The fig tree was dead. That much was certain.
It had eight or nine branches forking out from the main stem and every one of them was gray and dry. In other words, dead.
We first noticed it in March, but kept hoping for some kind of miracle as the calendar turned to April. Still, no sign of life. We have a soaker hose that runs among the blueberries, blackberries and fig tree, and we left it where it was and kept it going on its four-times-a-week schedule. By the time May rolled around, we resigned ourselves to the tree's demise.
We only had ourselves to blame. Our tree came from a cutting from my brother-in-law's fig tree in Valley Stream and it had lasted some 20-plus years. We had taken good care of it, diligently pruning and wrapping it each winter in successive layers of dead leaves, burlap, tar paper and plastic. But two years ago, inspired by a colleague who had left her tree unwrapped the previous winter yet still harvested a bevy of figs the following fall, we chose not to cover ours. Lo and behold, it also survived. We confidently did the same this past winter but that season's unusual brutality took its toll.
Midway through spring, we mentally wrote off the fig tree and began debating what to do with the space it occupied.
But in June, something changed. Shoots came bursting from the ground, up through the lilies of the valley that surround the fig tree. There were three or four at first, then others followed. Now, more than a dozen are fanning out in what looks more like a fig bush. And each limb is laden with budding fruit.
It turns out that even though a fig tree can be dead above ground, its root system can be very much alive. And those roots can send up what are called sucker shoots to ensure that the tree can regrow itself. It is one of nature's marvelous adaptations, a remarkable display of resurgence.
I have since learned that we were not alone. Long Island was full of fig tree stories this summer. Not all of them ended well. But the ones that did should give all of us hope, as fig trees always have given humans hope.
These trees have held deep cultural and spiritual significance for generations. Figs probably were humanity's first domesticated crop, cultivated more than 11,000 years ago. The sacred fig is critically important in Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainism. In ancient Greece, figs were symbols of peace, prosperity and fertility, and the earliest Olympians were rewarded with figs. In ancient Egypt, the sacred "tree of life" was the sycamore fig. Xikum, the Babylonian tree of life and emblem of the goddess Ishtar, was a fig tree. Fig trees appear repeatedly in the Bible, signifying peace and plenty.
The rebirth of a fig tree is a powerful metaphor of resilience. Its lesson — that life can emerge after apparent death — can speak to us in all seasons, but it resonated particularly profoundly this past week during our somber reflections about 9/11. I don't mean this merely in the sense of lower Manhattan's rebound in the wake of the attacks, but more so in the personal stories of so many people who were gutted and leveled by that awful day, who suffered devastating personal losses, and who are working their way back. I see it also in all of those who suffered great deprivation at other times and rose again.
People are like fig trees. They, too, can come back from some very dark places with nurturing, patience and persistence. Just as we should not have given up on our fig tree, nor should any of us give up on our fellow humans. We, like the figs, are resilient. With time and care, we find hope.
Columnist Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
