Life Reaching Toward the Light

Sometimes what looks like an ending, may be the beginning of a different kind of growth.  When we had to cut the tree down, the whole garden changed. Without its wide canopy, the yard seemed hotter, more distant, and strangely empty. Everything was exposed beneath the hard summer sun. Paul said, "The ceiling was gone." Until then, I had never thought of a tree that way, but it did not surprise me that he did.  We believed that was the end of its story. But beneath the ground, something else was happening. The roots were still alive. Small shoots appeared around what remained of the trunk. Soon they became fresh green leaves. Not the towering canopy we had known, but something determined and unmistakably alive. Watching the tree begin again made me think about how people are changed by illness, loss, and difficult seasons. Sometimes healing begins only after the right answers are found and the body or spirit is finally given what it needs: Peace.Care.Nourishment.Time. I do not know what this tree will become. Perhaps it will remain smaller, shaped by what it has endured. Perhaps one day another generation will sit beneath its branches. All I know now is the birds have returned. The squirrel once again darts beneath the new leaves before racing along the fence. Slowly, the tree is becoming part of the garden again.Not as it was. But as it is now.