I ate a fig today, and cried.

I know it sounds crazy, but that green fig brought back memories of summers long ago; summers of a carefree youth where worries of the future seemed as far off as the sun.

My grandfather, Papa Nato, was a farmer, and he just so happened to farm figs ‑ Kadota figs to be exact. Figs don’t have a very long shelf life, so when I saw them sitting there in that plastic container at Trader Joe’s, I knew I had to buy them.

From my earliest memory figs were a part of my life. I remember how my grandfather would come home with two or three figs, the first that had ripened, and would give them to me.

I still recall peeling back the green skin to reveal the white layer and breaking the fig open to reveal the brown flesh. I remember the stickiness of that first fig and how good it was.

Yes, that fig from Trader Joe’s brought tears to my eyes, but it also brought back so many memories that made me smile.

Summer memories of a growing up in a small town; of summers spent running along the rows of figs tress with a dog named Skippy; of summer nights hearing stories told by my grandfather under the stars.

To this day I recall those stories he told of his childhood growing up in San Juan de Guadalupe, Durango, Mexico; of his boyhood adventures and then later of his trek north to work for the railroad as a young man and how he traveled the western United States with the railroad.

The tears that fig brought were not of sadness, but rather of nostalgia. Of a time when nothing mattered but that singular moment; of summers running among the fig trees, with a small black dog at my side and a grandfather who was always there.