A short story: The Tree

The tree has stood in my yard as long as I can remember. As a small child I remember looking out at it, imagining the limbs touching the stars as its gnarled and knotted body looked at me, at once threatening me, but yet beseeching me.

It would take me years to gain the courage to approach it; to finally seek the solace in its comforting arms. It was a friend to me, would listen to me as I confided my inner fears, as I told it of my little problems. The tree didn’t judge me or question me it just watched over me, a friend through thick or thin.

On the days when it rained or snowed I watched it move in rhythm with the winds. I felt its strength as the snow rested on its limbs. I didn’t fear for the tree for I knew it was strong and fearless; I knew that nature couldn’t tear down this bastion of my heart. Even when the hurricane ripped through our neighborhood, the tree stood there, pounded by nature’s worst, standing there proud and free, defiance evident in every powerful limb, every deep root.

I got older but the tree was still there for me. When I professed my love to one girl or another it would keep my secret. In my blindness I scarred the tree with my hearts and initials, not realizing the silent pain the tree must have felt; but I was young and in love, and the hold the tree had on me was diminishing. I began to grow and reach out into the world, I began to move on. On reflection I merely was a tree myself, my roots being the roots my parents had steadfastly planted into me; love, honesty and honor. My limbs were the limbs of passion, the limbs of innocence and the limbs of inquisitiveness. The more I grew, the more my limbs stretched out into the world.

When I left home to enter the world I didn’t even say goodbye to the tree. It had been there for me through the years, but I was so caught up in my life and my birth into the new world that it had become insignificant; it had become a distant memory, almost a bitter memory of innocence lost and times forgotten.

As I flourished in the world, pursuing my own happiness and family I didn’t remember the tree. I forgot the comfort that old gnarled thing gave me, or the secrets it still held; a true friend to the end, yet one alone and forgotten.

It wasn’t until my mother died, until that fateful day I returned to my childhood house and saw the decay of my early days, that I recalled the tree. It was a dark day; my father seemed lost and lonely, my heart almost broke when I saw the fear in his eyes; the fear of being alone in this world, the fear that I had never known. My son couldn’t break his mood and wandered into the yard, his innocence a bright light in the darkness.

As the thunder began to break around us I moved to the yard searching for my son. A lightning flash illuminated the yard, and there the tree was, limbs wrapped protectively around my son. My father moved beside me, watching the shadows of the great tree and I put my arm around him. I looked at him, tears in my eyes and whispered softly.

“It’s going to be alright”. And it was.

……

Years later, forgotten by another generation, watching a derelict house being demolished, the tree fell. It didn’t suffer nor did it cry; it had fulfilled its life and protected where needed. It was a tree, and it lived the circle of life.