A Christmas Apple

The following was sent to me by a writer friend, who in turn received it from his writer friend. It's such a good message to share during this Holiday Season, I have received permission to share it with everybody. I couldn't think of a better way to spread this message but to post it on A2K.
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A Christmas Apple

Jordy loved a tree. She was an apple tree growing in the garden, and she was the most beautiful tree in the world. In the spring, the tree grew a cloud of fragrant blossoms, and Jordy stood underneath and looked up at the blue sky through the white blossoms and listened to the bees humming through them in a lilting golden haze. Later the winds blew, and Jordy ran around and around the tree laughing as the blossoms fell on him like snow In the summer he lay in the grass underneath the cool green roof of leaves. He talked to the tree. He told the tree, whose name was Winnie, how his daddy was far away fighting in a war. Jordy didn't know the name of the place where his daddy was fighting. His mommy said it was across an ocean, where there was water as far as you could see, like upside down sky.
Jordy told Winnie how sometimes he heard his mommy crying at night after he went to bed. It scared him, to hear her cry. Winnie rustled her leaves and bent her branches low around him. He knew she couldn't bend enough to hug him, but she did the best she could. He put his arms around her trunk as far as they would go.
One day Jordy asked his mommy what a war was. She said when the governments of countries were mad at each other they sent armies to fight and that was a war. Jordy tried to think about getting mad at Derrick and sending an army to fight Derrick's army, instead of fighting Derrick himself. But when he thought up the whole war and won with his army, he still wanted to fight Derrick himself. The armies were fun, kind of, but they weren't very satisfying. Maybe they were more satisfying to grownups, like mushroom soup.
One night on television he watched with his mommy as people walked along carrying big banners and signs. His mommy said, "See, that's a peace march. Those people want the war to stop." Later she whispered, "I wish all wars would stop, forever."
Jordy told Winnie about the peace march. She stretched her branches out in the sky and Jordy saw all the little green apples growing among the leaves.
One day his mommy wrote a letter to his daddy. She asked Jordy if he wanted to put anything in the letter. He ran out to Winnie and asked her if he could have a leaf for his daddy. Winnie said sure, and Jordy picked a shining green leaf and took it to his mommy. She hugged him and put the leaf inside the envelope with the letter. "He can keep it for remembrance," she said.
In the fall Winnie dipped her branches low so Jordy could reach the beautiful red and yellow apples. When he bit into one the juice sprayed on his cheeks and dribbled down his chin. They didn't taste like apples from the store. Winnie's apples tasted of sun and wind and golden bees buzzing and apple blossoms and sky. Besides the ones she held down for Jordy to eat, she dropped some on the ground. Those were pie-apples, for his mommy to bake.
When the apples were eaten and the weather turned cool, Winnie's leaves changed from green to yellow. Jordy put his jacket on and sat against Winnie's trunk to keep them both warm. He looked up at the gray sky through the yellow leaves. High up in Winnie's branches, near the very top of her, he saw one apple. He asked Winnie if he could climb up there to get it. She didn't mind. She liked Jordy to eat her apples.
He hauled himself to the lowest branch, and then from there to the next and the next. He climbed so high that Winnie was all around him, above and below. He grew tired and sat on a branch to rest. When he looked up, the one apple was still far, far above. He climbed back down to the ground and fell asleep with Winnie singing softly above him. When he woke up he told Winnie again how his daddy was far away across the upside-down sky ocean. But he couldn't remember his daddy very well anymore. He knew what he looked like from pictures, though. Winnie whispered that it was okay.
By the time the first snow came, Winnie's leaves were all gone. But the apple still hung on high on the highest branch. It had turned brown. Jordy thought Winnie was keeping it for remembrance. Maybe she made it brown so the birds wouldn't want it.
A man came to the door one day and talked to Jordy's mommy, and she started crying and she cried and cried. When the man left she kneeled down and held Jordy tight. "Daddy's gone," she said through her tears. "He died."
Jordy put his arms around Winnie's bare gray trunk and laid his ear against her bark and told her about his daddy.
Then a box came in the mail, but it didn't go under the Christmas tree with the other boxes. Jordy watched as his mommy took out the things in the box one by one. Finally she took out the letter she'd written, that had Winnie's leaf for remembrance inside the envelope. The leaf was brown now, like the apple. Jordy's mommy held it to her cheek.
On Christmas morning Jordy woke up and ran to see what Santa Claus had brought him. But as he and his mommy opened presents, he saw the tears in her eyes. She was always sad now, since his daddy died in the war. Maybe if he could give her what she wished for, she could be happy again.
He put on his new warm jacket and walked out over the sparkling snow to Winnie. He put his arms around her trunk and said, "Please make all war stop, Winnie. For my mommy." He knew she could do it, because she was the best and most beautiful tree in the world.
From the highest branch, Winnie tossed down the apple to Jordy for his own Christmas present. He caught it in his mittens and laughed, because the withered brown apple had turned plump and red in the winter sunshine. Jordy bit into the apple and it filled his mouth with the taste of honey and blossoms and sky.
With his ear pressed against her trunk, he heard Winnie murmuring. On a little breeze, she passed along his wish to the nearest tree, a birch beyond the garden. The birch whispered to the other birches in the grove, and the last birch passed the message to a pine tree, and the pine whispered to the maple, "Peace." Soon all the trees nearby were saying it and passing it along to the other trees farther away.
When the message reached the farthest trees at the edge of the upside down sky ocean, they gave the message to birds to carry across on the wind, and they gave it to the waves that lapped at their feet to carry across on the water. Beyond the ocean, the trees took up the word again, whispering "Peace" from one to another across all the lands.
Most of the adults couldn't hear the words of trees the way Jordy heard Winnie. But they heard the message in their hearts. And when they heard the message, they longed for what it said: peace. Teachers and waiters and pilots and clerks longed for it, and soldiers and weavers and doctors and programmers longed for it, and finally the men and women in governments longed for it, too. Still the trees whispered "peace."
And people all over the world began to say, "peace."
One day in early spring with the first buds fattening on Winnie's branches, Jordy ran out to her and heard - nothing. When he asked her why she wasn't saying "peace" any more, she said it was because people had decided to stop all war forever.
Jordy ran to tell his mommy, and she smiled and hugged him tight.
From then on, whenever the trees heard a rumor of anger between countries, they began to murmur "peace," and people heard them in their hearts, and let their anger blow away.
And every Christmas morning, in honor of a boy and a beautiful apple tree, all the trees all over the world whispered, "Peace on earth and goodwill to all."

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c.i.