a tale of two trees

Two hackberry trees grew up together in a wood near a small creek. In the moist, rich soil, their roots grew deep and intertwined with one another as they reached deeper and deeper into the earth. At the same time, the grove around them protected their soft bark from the harsher elements of Mother Nature. The space around them enabled their branches to expand out in many directions and so they did, exploring the wide world around them and swaying in the gentle breezes that passed through their lives.

The hackberry trees admired one another greatly, for they had many similar interests and qualities, and spent many hours laughing, enjoying each other’s company, and discussing what might become of them and the forest in which they lived. Each grew strong and tall with the passing years as they took on their mature triangular features. Fruit began to grace their grayish-brown branches, a lovely royal purple berry with goldenrod flesh.

One day the tenderhearted female tree remarked, “I believe that someday soon I will leave this forest, for some greater purpose is in store for me.”

The loyal male tree replied, “No doubt your purpose is very noble, my lady. I hope my own is equally so.”

Not long after this conversation, a group of men sauntered into the hackberry pair’s grove. As they approached the area where the two trees stood, the lady’s soul fluttered. “I believe she is perfect for my daughter’s bedroom,” one man thought to himself, and he quickly took his ax and cleanly chopped her trunk and the group carried her out of the forest. The lady whispered quietly in her branches, “Surely the place where I am going is quite special.”

After a short journey in the back of a large truck, the men removed the lady’s fruit and leafy green branches and began to artfully transform her into a shapely hope chest. When the chest was complete, the man called his daughter into the backyard to see the gift he had promised her.

“Oh, daddy, it’s beautiful!” she cried as she hugged him tight. The man smiled and tried to record each detail of the child’s bright blue eyes and joyous expression in his mind. His eight year old daughter did not have long to live, the doctors had told him, and her only wish was to have a hope chest just like momma’s where she could put her favorite dolls and the letters and pictures her mother had given her before going to be with Jesus last year. The lady hackberry, now an elegant treasure chest, proudly held the memories of the precious child for six months before the cancer took the little girl away.

Meanwhile, back in the forest, the gentleman hackberry wondered if he would ever see his friend again. His branches rustled as he yearned to talk with her and see how time had changed her, and what great purpose she had fulfilled. He wondered too, about what his own purpose might yet be.

About seven months later, a familiar teary-eyed man returned to the forest, to the very spot where the lady hackberry had stood. He carried no ax this time, just a small picture of his fair-headed little girl sitting atop a magnificent rich brown wooden box. The hackberry knew immediately that this was his long-lost lady friend beneath the child in the picture. The father sat down among the decomposing leaves, leaned against the hackberry, and wept.

The hackberry sighed as he felt the weight of the father’s sorrow pressing through his bark. As he wondered what comfort he could offer, he sensed the man’s sadness slowly lifting. The tree’s gentle trunk and sweet-smelling fruit were lifting the cloud of grief as the man remembered his daughter’s love of the forest and the many walks among the trees that the three of them had taken so many years ago before the illness came.

Suddenly refreshed, the man arose and quickly departed. When he returned, he was carrying his ax and had several friends with him. The father, with new light in his eyes, chopped down the hackberry tree that had shared his burdens and drove it home. With great skill he sawed and nailed the beautiful wood together until he had created a new bench for his backyard. Weary but satisfied, the man sat down on the bench. In the distance, the sun was setting over a grove of hackberry trees just beyond his backyard fence.

The man smiled. “You hackberry trees brought us great joy,” he whispered softly. “Now the beauty of your gifts to my family will be appreciated by every generation.”

-pjn 1/10/06