This morning, my neighbor points to her apple tree’s blossoms and announces her worry regarding the lack of pollinators this year. Have we seen many bees and butterflies yet? Without pollinators, she won’t get fruit.
No fruit? But I love my fruit.
I explore my backyard and indeed find them: bees, butterflies, and moths dart and dance across the strawberry and blueberry blossoms.
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| Strawberry Patch |
Then I remember something about these new blueberry bushes. I remember how they can’t produce fruit alone. They not only need pollinators to fertilize them, but they also can’t be fertilized with their own pollen. In the case of these blueberries, for example, you need different varieties to cross-pollinate in order to have fruit.
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| Blossoms on the Blueberries |
So confusing! So dependent and conditional and troubling! Can’t she just produce alone?
I call my husband: “Sweetheart, did we plant two different varieties of blueberry bushes? Did we? Because you know that. . . “
“Yes,” he interrupts. “Yes I know that you need different kinds in order to cross-pollinate. We’re good.” He hangs up and returns to work. I’m so thankful that he knows what he’s doing.
Because I don’t.
I’ll never make it without you. The older I get, the more I realize how much I need others and they need me. We are as interdependent as pollinators, one kind of blueberry, and an entirely different kind of blueberry. If even one component doesn’t show up, we’re doomed.
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Have you come to realize this?