Tree of Life

Roots stretch through cold brown dirt; they intertwine together, linking arms, connecting the past to the present to the future. The tree, the roots speak of our family history, so long and forgotten; no one really knows the beginning, no one really knows the ending. Mind racing, braking, slowing to a drowsy stop painted leaves a tinge of green, roots a dripping brown. As kids did we one day think we would become this? You know, from that age where we held onto a yellow balloon with all our might; don’t let go, don’t let it fly into a space so black and glittered with stars and suns and moons and red planets bigger than our thumb and eye. Where spaceships flew and air was hard to come by. And without warning, the balloon leaped your grasp, and you cried out for help, for someone to bring it down, away from the unknown that was so dark with no night light to keep you safe. Leaf by leaf hung delicately to each branch and root, and we grew to become shy with our big, forgiving eyes. It was that first moment, that first realization that the rest of the world didn’t love us unconditionally like they used to, and they didn’t cry out for the yellow balloon that flew into the unknown, so dark, so constraining. They weren’t there when you painted eggs, blue, green, pink, yellow, purple, and you asked which sticker was best to finish it off. Which sticker, that was it. And there they were, your mother, your brother, your grandparents and adults that seemed so close because they were. They sat there and they smiled. “Which sticker do you like?” “I like you.” And a grin, pure and naive, broke your face into a million little pieces, and you spread your roots into the ground, into that one memory where easter eggs and stickers and people that loved you radiated in rays from the sun above; your biggest night light from the blackness of space and sky. Because we grow and our trunks age with lines that hug in circles, so deep and clear. And the roots wrap with such grace to connect our past to present to future. And like trees, we were alone, yet connected from leaf to leaf where we fell from innocence and youth and the summer breeze one after another, each changing like the seasons. We reinvented ourselves, cleansed in a sort of rebirth from the old ways of desire for unconditional love from the mass of piling, decomposing leaves. To love, to cry for the love of the roots we dug so deep, without a night light where we realized that no one loved us like they used to, that we were different away from our family, our roots. As trees of life we cried out for a yellow balloon in space: “This is not the end.”