The gift of a clean apple

Where I've disappeared to. And the question no one ever asked me until now.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Here’s why:

I’m away from my desk due to a family medical emergency.

Actually, make that a double!

(Very) long story short: My step mom was hospitalized for a serious infection earlier this month, and while my 93-year-old dad was visiting her in the hospital, he had a stroke. (A mild one, we learned later, but at 93, what’s mild about a stroke?)

This week I’m living out of a suitcase of mismatched clothes that I packed in a daze of anxiety, and I’m living in my folks’ empty house a few hundred miles from my own house. My days have been spent driving between hospitals, overseeing care, and getting one and then the other parent admitted to rehab, adjusted to rehab etc.

I’ve been unexpectedly ‘out of office this week. (Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash)

And now, I’m running on empty

And it was while I was shuttling between care facilities one evening, with my tank literally and figuratively on empty, that I pulled into a service station to fill up my car. All I’d eaten for dinner were the half-eaten sandwich and pudding leftover on my step-mom’s dinner tray. Longing for some real food, I picked up an apple from the basket of tired looking fruit on the counter when I was paying for my gas to eat on my drive back to the house. I handed an extra dollar to the neatly dressed gray-haired man at the register.

“Would you like clean apple?” he asked in a loveley, accented English.

I must have given him a puzzled look. He nodded to the back of the dingy gas-station market. “Water and towels to clean apple,” he said.

I went to the industrial sink in the corner where a roll of brown paper towels hung from a cord. I rinsed the apple well, as I would do at home, and toweled it dry. At home, I meticulously clean my fruit before eating it. On the road, as I was now, I would otherwise have rinsed the apple by leaning out the driver-side door of my parked car, pouring the contents of my water bottle over the fruit, and wiping the apple off with a handful of Kleenex.

This invitation to use the sink and towels in the little gas mart felt like a blessing.

As I exited the store I stopped for a moment to thank the proprietor. He nodded reflexively. So before heading back to my car, I added, “Really, thank you.”

He seemed to be taking in my gratitude, but maybe wasn’t quite sure what prompted it.

“Do you know, no one has ever asked me that before?” He looked curious now. “I never eat apples without washing them first, but when I buy them in a store no one has ever asked me if I’d like to wash it. No one ever offered me the chance to do so.”

He smiled and a nodded. I had the feeling that he appreciates a clean apple, too!

The apple was nothing special. It was a little soft; not as crisp as I would prefer. But the man’s simple offering, and the gentle kindness in his eyes was like the clean water that washed not just the apple, but my sad heart, too. (Photo by Mehmet Keskin on Unsplash)

Thank you to everyone who has been sending me texts and emails bursting with bandaged heart emojis, prayer hands, and words of comfort. I feel your love and support and I deeply appreciate it!

But wait, there’s more to the apple story.

After telling this little story to a friend she shared this:

She has been on a retreat doing deep healing work on her childhood trauma. The process pushed her farther than she could comfortably manage, and she felt herself sinking into a state of emotional retreat.

A man who was also on the retreat noticed. “Are you okay?” he asked. The tears that sprang to her eyes in response told him all he needed to know. He sat with her and listened for a few minutes. That simple question and a listening ear did wonders, she told me, to restore her spirits.

“It was like when that man asked if you’d like to wash your apple. All through my childhood and all through my suffering, no one ever seemed to notice. No one ever looked at me and asked, ‘Are you okay.’”

So now I’ll ask you:

What’s the question you’ve never been asked—but long to hear?

What simple words have made all the difference for you?

And are you doing okay?

Photo by Natalie Kinnear on Unsplash

Until next time …

I’m dreaming with you,

Tzivia Gover, author and Certified Dreamwork Professional

May 26 @ 9:00 pm - May 30 @ 7:30 pm EDT

Dream Journey into the Soul

with the Dream Star Constellation ~ Victoria Rabinowe, Linda Schiller, Lauren Schneider, Tzivia Gover, Marta Aarli
​At the Dreaming Arts Studio, Santa Fe, NM NM, United States

​Connect your waking, conscious awareness to the vast universe of the unconscious, opening doors to the unknown topography of the psyche and your dreaming mind through expressive arts and imaginal ways of knowing.

Space is limited for this in-person, once-in-a-lifetime retreat! Register soon and claim your seat!