Memories

That Harvest is ready to be gathered. The fields are thick with wild growth. The branches are weighed down with fruit grown without a single day of work from my hands. But I don’t dare venture out and reap that bounty for the same reason that I have allowed the land to lie fallow for so many years.

I didn’t always shy away from that portion of my property. As I child would play on those hills. I could lay my head down under the branches and sleep in perfect peace. That land was given to me by my Father and it was to be my job to tend to it, fight for it, and then pass it on to my children. When the lion began to roam around the boundaries of the land, I didn’t do much to fend him off. After all, he wasn’t a very big lion and surely he must be more scared of me than I was of him. How wrong I was, and I have the disfiguring scars to prove it. Now that lion has claimed that field as its territory.

However, after so many years, I have outgrown the small patch of land I retreated onto. This acreage has provided me what I needed and more and I will not abandon it. I have built my house on this land. It is my home. But now that I have a child of my own, this land will not provide enough and the stone wall that I built to keep the lion away from me is now keeping me from that which I need.

I am still not prepared to harvest from that land but I am working towards it. I have built a fence around it. I am reclaiming it as that which is rightfully mine. The lion might be trapped by that fence and that will make him more dangerous, but soon I will be ready to fight him, to kill him, and again walk on to that land, to play with my daughter on those hills, and sleep under those branches after eating my fill. And when my Father comes back, He will be proud of the work that I have done.