I miss our old apple trees.

My wife and I moved into our present home just as grandchildren were being added to our family. Our backyard then had two trees that remained from a long-ago orchard.

The trees were old with droopy limbs, still they managed to produce apples for us. We never knew exactly the variety, but we called them old-fashioned apples, the kind good for cooking.

I fondly recall wonderful years of cooked apples, apple butter, apple pie, apple cake, and apple bread. My wife even experimented in the kitchen and made a delicious version of an apple cinnamon crunch pie-of-sort.

During that decade beside the trees, we enjoyed a bumper crop—not just apples, but grandchildren, too.

The kids frequently visited and became observant of the apple cycle. In the springtime, they joined us in admiring the delicate white blossoms that announced the apples to come. Later, they sometimes grimaced as they witnessed the work of bees. As petals dropped into the grass below, we explained this process of nature. Soon they were excited to notice early signs of tiny green apples. Finally, when the apples became red and ready, our grandchildren were excited for picking time.

Placing a ladder under the tree, I stood by and watched as little ones climbed into apple reaching distance. Their Grandmommie stood by with a bucket to catch what they selected. Off to the sides, squirrels stood by, hoping for fallen fruit.

With full buckets, the kids followed us into the kitchen. During those years we never gave the children a knife, so they could only watch as my wife peeled the apples. She did let them put their hands into the flour and help make pie crusts. What a time they had. What a time we all had.

Once while we were eating pie and ice cream, I remarked to my wife how much I liked our apples.

She wistfully remarked, “You know, the real apples of my eye are our grandchildren.” Then she noted how children have a similar cycle to apples. They, too, transform from delicate blossoms into tiny hints of what they eventually become at picking time.

A year or two after our youngest grandchild no longer needed help on a ladder, our trees succumbed to ravages of old age and were removed from the back yard. Today they are missed by the redbirds, squirrels, bees, and the folks in the house.

It’s not the apples we miss so much. We can find apples on restaurant menus (although not offered in the exact apple cinnamon crunch concoction my wife perfected). What we miss, though, are those times we shared with the kids under the tree and in the kitchen.

Our grandchildren are still visiting. They come by these days for reasons beyond the bond of apple business.    

That’s the way it should be.