To The Class of 2005

An apple fell from a tree one day, rolled down the hill, and landed next to a rock. The journey away from the tree and down the hill was exhilarating. Thrilled with this new found freedom, the apple began to shout with joy, in Apple language of course, and celebrate this freedom with anyone who would listen. The rock was there and listened.

Part of the joy of being away from the tree was that finally the apple could prove that he was different than the tree, perhaps even a little better. This was a time of great adventure for the apple. The rock listened to the apple and just liked being with the apple.

After some time of celebrating and exploring this new freedom, the apple noticed a cut in his skin. His smooth and glossy red skin had a slit in it and underneath the skin near the slit was something brown and rotting. The apple looked at the rock and asked what was happening. The rock told the apple that something inside was dying.

This revelation was none too pleasant news for the apple. “Dying? What could be dying?” But sure enough, the rock was right and the apple felt worse and worse, even got depressed about this dying thing inside of him. In fact, the apple came to the point of despair. His heart broke.

Soon the apple was rotting through and through. He cried out to the rock, “What’s happening to me?” The rock said that the apple was growing. This only confused the apple since he was a full grown apple. Things that are full grown do not grow anymore. Furthermore the rock had now said that the apple was dying and growing. This did not make any sense, so he decided that the rock was not a reliable source of information and quit listening to the rock.

But his despair grew further. In his despair, he remembered the tree. He used to hang safely in the tree, growing and swinging. His stream of nourishment was never in question; it was always there for him. Now, he felt like he was in the desert with nothing to eat or drink. In short, his days as an apple were numbered.

At first he thought that he could roll back up the hill and hang on the tree again. But he soon found out that once you roll down the hill, there is no rolling back up. Not to mention the fact that no apple has ever been re-hung on a tree.

So, the apple gave trying to go home and just sat there and rotted. He rotted right down to the seed and seeped into the ground, thinking this was the end of him.

Then, after being in the ground for a while, he felt something. He something he had never felt before, but at the same time it was strangely familiar. Then he felt it again, only stronger this time. As the days went on, he felt this feeling every day. It was a new and kind of exciting feeling. It was almost as if he were growing again. In some ways it felt like the same feeling when he hung care free on the tree, but this was a much stronger feeling, more defined.

On the one hand he was enjoying this new life, but on the other hand, he looked nothing like an apple and sometimes longed for those days of appleness. However, those feelings of longing for the past would leave when more growth came. It was then that he realized that he was growing, just like the rock said he was. Maybe the rock knew something about him that he didn’t know.

So, as he continued to grow into a little tree, he got back in touch with the rock and they became friends again.

Then, when he was tall enough, he looked up the hill at the tree that was once his to swing on and play on and realized that he was in many ways just like the tree from which he came, though he was certainly his own tree.

The wind blew and he swayed in the wind just like the tree on the hill. And that Spring, his first apples appeared on his branches.