I met Figgy in the fall of 2019 when I moved into the house of the backyard that he sits in the corner of. At the time, Figgy was a collection of thick big, seemingly dead, leafless branches cascading out of the ground. A close friend of mine, blog name Tree Climber, who owns a tree service visited shortly after I moved into the trim the mature trees around the lot. We talked about Figgy right in front of Figgy. At the time, we thought Figgy was some sort of large dry shrub.
Tree Climber suggested that we wait until next spring to see what happens before having Figgy removed. Tree Climber said, “I think it is a fig tree, and it just might come back in the spring.” Figs? I love figs!
Sure enough, Figgy made a comeback in the spring. He grew leaves and then figs, and I it was then that I named him Figgy. By now, it was 2020, oh 2020. Figgy was a ray of sunshine during a lonely, chaotic time. My little Pumpkine kitty loved to climb onto Figgy’s thick branches and sit and wait for a bird to land for a fig. I miss little Pumpkine.
Figgy heard many of cuss words during the pandemic as we remodeled our little home, taking our humble abode from 1973 to the present. I remember sitting on my back porch in the fall of 2021 a few weeks after taking Brainy Bird to college, Figgy’s leaves were again gone, and he again looked like he might be gone. I wondered if Figgy was still with me, and I wondered if Figgy missed Pumpkine as much as I did.
Figgy made it back again in the spring of 2022. He looked on as I stocked the garage apartment with excessive amounts of snacks and easy to make meals in anticipation of Brainy Bird’s arrival home from college that summer. The summer whizzed by. I do not remember a single time that summer that I sat on my back porch to take pause and just appreciate the moment.
The fall of 2022 is a blur. The cold snap in the winter of 2022 surely kicked Figgy, but Figgy held on. Figgy looked on again in the spring of 2023 as I again overstocked the garage apartment with food in anticipation of Brainy Bird’s arrival home from college for the summer. Figgy struggled through the summer as did I. For Figgy the struggle was a heat wave and a drought, and two plants of evasive species growing into him, literally choking the life out of him. I suffered in the same heat wave, and figuratively plants of an evasive species engulfed me, choking the positive energy and happiness out of my life.
Figgy and I survived.
Coming into this summer, Brainy Bird was again home from the summer, but I was too distracted with my own emotional weights to take the time to stock the garage apartment with snacks. I wonder if Figgy felt forgotten at this point. For whatever reason, Brainy Bird’s best friend offered to trim Figgy up, removing the evasive vines and other plants that nearly choked the life out of him, and cutting out the old dead branches.
I arrived home from work one evening to find an enormous pile of branches and vine in the yard, and an almost unrecognizable, thriving Figgy. Figgy now looks like a picturesque fig tree with big green leaves and more figs than even I could eat. I am now sitting on my back porch admiring Figgy. It is a stormy summer afternoon. The thunder has passed, and a steady light rain fall quenches Figgy’s thirst.
Sitting here on my back porch, taking a moment to reflect and appreciate life is now a frequent part of my routine. Sometimes, I invite close friends to join me on the back porch. I do enjoy the company of close friends, but often times it is just Figgy and I with the fur kids. Figgy and I both went through some tough years, now the two of us are thriving.
Cheers to making it through the tough years with Figgy. Cheers to the years ahead!