Life is full of surprises. Mine, this time, is a green one. And it has a lot to do with the adage ‘One generation plants a tree, and another enjoys its shade’. My maternal grandfather, a bishop, possessed a green thumb, as manifested through a majority of the trees in my garden.

Some of these, including the guava trees, the mulberry trees, the fig trees, and the mango tree, still exist and produce fruit in due season. Others, however, succumbed to time. This is also true of one of the many lemon trees that he planted in his lifetime.

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This particular variety was known for enormous fruit, only one of which could be held in one hand at a time. It would hardly fit into the squeezer and had to be cut up into small pieces. One lemon could churn out three or four glasses of yummy lemonade.

These trees, too, withered over the years, leaving us with sweet and sour memories. However, the roots of the righteous revive again even after staying dormant for centuries — a belief rooted in the Holy Bible. “The root of the righteous yieldeth fruit,” says the Book of Proverbs 12:12. I know this is true as I have seen it unfold.

Having lain dormant for more than a decade, the roots of this lemon tree revived a couple of years ago. We rarely anticipated that what we had lost would someday reappear unexpectedly.

While initially we dismissed it as a ‘useless weed’, and would have removed it, the appearance of flowers and luscious fruit made us pause and think.

“It is a lemon tree, and it is not wild,” said my gardener. “But we never planted one!” I interjected. As it was very close to the spot where my grandfather had planted his, I realised that it was probably growing from the roots of the previous one.

We held back the axe and allowed it to grow. Now, it blesses us perennially with the most succulent lemons, similar to those we enjoyed in my grandfather’s time.

Recently, my brother surprised us with something similar. A grapevine that our grandfather had planted in the house he lives in with his family, had sprouted again from the root of the original one that had withered years ago.

“It sprouted again this year, much to our joy and surprise,” he said. The juicy grapes he had harvested from it testified to our grandfather’s green legacy again.

Trees, after all, are more than just timber. They are the living legacy of the righteous, who plant them. Putting others before self is the mark of a righteous man, and planting trees can aptly be considered a righteous deed.

While the one who plants them might not get to enjoy them, he leaves behind an eternal legacy for all his coming generations. Trees represent eternity given their ability to rise again from their rejuvenated roots. We jeopardise ours when we fell one.

Watching Nepal count its missing today, one cannot help but wonder — would fewer slopes have given way if more righteous roots had held them?

shaheen.parshad@gmail.com