I almost cried tears of childhood nostalgia when I saw these beautiful Rose Apple and Mango trees on my Florida trip. My mind couldn’t help but wander back to my late grandfather’s (Ông Ngoại) mango tree and our neighbor Ông Quảng’s rose apple tree - a romance for the ages.

You see, as we were reading our comic books and napping under the shades of the mango tree, next door, Ông Quảng’s grandchildren were doing the SAME thing under their grandfather’s rose apple tree. The two trees were comparable in heights, maturity, and fruitfulness.  Their branches reached over to each other’s territory, interlocking in a warm embrace. I used to fantasize that they were lovers having conversations in their secret language, as their leaves rustled in the summer breeze.

Sometimes, we stole the rose apples that reached over to our side, but Ông Quảng’s grandchildren never snitched, because they also stole our mangoes that reached over to their side. We had an unspoken understanding 😁.

And with that unspoken understanding, many delicious and tender memories were made under the united canopy of Ông Khảo’s mango tree and Ông Quảng’s rose apple tree, as their towering, fruit-laden branches were protecting us, lullabying our afternoon hammock naps with gentle whispering leaves.

In 2011, on my visit back to Vietnam, I was devastated to learn that both trees have been demolished in the name of commerce development - casualties of Vietnam’s exponential economics growth. The real estate developers’ bulldozers spared nothing and no one. Poor street merchants who have built their livelihoods for decades along muddy river banks were cruelly displaced with no compensation. Cold cement was poured where beloved childhood trees once stood.

The peaceful corner where we used to nap and play under the shielding canopies of our tree friends was now replaced by a noisy, smoggy main road, where busy merchants and tourists carelessly cross.

Although it was never confirmed to me, I’d like to think that Ông Ngoại’s and Ông Quảng’s trees were defiantly locking hands as they fell together to their final moment, as if they were extending their arms to shield the last shred of our childhood. And I would expect nothing less of our cherished star-crossed lovers - the romance of all ages.