If an Apple Was a Woman...

If an apple was a woman, she would be your mother. Not the sweetest of the fruits, nor the softest. Not the most beautiful of women, nor the most desirable. Despite this though, our most basic understanding of fruits and of women comes from these wonderfully unique sources.

For every Granny Smith, Fuji, Delicious, or Gala; for every speckle on an apple's gradient peel; for every bump that rests in the cradles of our fingers, there are unique and strong mothers guiding their children. No two mothers and no two apples are identical, and yet there is something consistently wonderful about each and every one.

The apple is one of the most diverse fruits. Apples are packed with pectin, a fiber that aids in digestion and prevents heart disease. And apples have relatively hard flesh that gives them transportability without bruising. Your mother, much like an apple, is healthful and tough. She packed you brown bag lunches when the cafeteria served greasy pizza. She defended you when the bully up the street punched you in the head.

Even in the harshest anger, your forceful words rarely left a soft spot, but if they did, she would always forgive you and make apple sauce.

But apples and mothers are sweet as well. Apples are a perfect snack, but it is the desserts that remind us that within an apple's crispy core, there are sweet liquids eager to be sampled. Mothers love to spoil their children, and apples love to spoil our diets.

French apple pies with crumb toppings as smooth as Hawaiian sand. The baked apples with freckles of cinnamon drip with mocha-colored, sugar-apple syrup. And every time you smell the buttery crust cracking in the oven, you think of your mother baking just because she felt like making something sweet.

Some apples get worms though. Some apples spoil the entire family barrel. Not all mothers are perfect examples of womanhood, but for most of you, the apple and your mother represent a quintessential vibration of comfort and iconography. I say, "fruit," you think apple. I say, "lovely woman," you think mother.