The Memory of Trees
One day, the girl came back to the tree, as she always did. This tree, it knew her. It sensed that, even though there were changes, this was still the same girl. It always was.
“Do you remember me?” the tree asked, in its way, with a slow wave of its leaves.
Of course, the girl did not hear the tree. However, she saw that slight shudder of its foliage. Additionally, she saw how that almost indiscernible movement caused a single ray of light to quietly, quickly, and sneakily peek between the tree’s crown. It made her smile. She smiled because she remembered. The memory was perfect. The tree could tell.
She walked around the tree, her smile growing with each step she took around the wide trunk. Before she made it all the way around, she became a woman. The tree did not know this, for she was still the same girl, it could tell. She always was. Her wide smile, still in place, now accompanied by lines that signified she loved to laugh. A fact the tree knew well.
“I remember you,” said the tree, in its way. It leaned toward the girl, in a way that only a tree could. A single drop of water, maybe trapped from the evening’s rain, fell right onto the tip of the woman’s nose. She burst into abrupt laughter. The wind and the tree held each other as they looked and laughed with her, in their way.
Her soft bark, now more closely resembling that of the tree’s, was still as beautiful to the tree as it was when it first allowed her to hug and climb; cry in it and hide in it; laugh and sit under it; and sing, and dance, and laugh with it. Laughed, just as she was doing now. Under the tree, moon, and stars; Mother Night’s blanket.
The tree smiled, in its way. A cascade of red, and yellow, and gold, slowly and gently fell on this eldmother below. She looked up, and smiled back, in her way.
Then, she was gone. But still, the tree remembered.
One day, the girl came back to the tree, as she always did. This tree, it knew her. It sensed that, even though there were changes, this was still the same girl. It always was.
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