I forgot to mention that at the base of the tree there was a thumb-size sprout, fragile looking, with several leaves giving the world a good fight. It must have taken to life when an orange dropped and I left it on the soil. I knew it was there but never focused on, it or gave it credibility. I dug at it with a trowel and the roots were strong and deep. I had to poke down into the huge pot to enable the tiny plant its freedom. I tore some roots in the process and was awed by its strength. I gave it its own pot and sun.It was now an individual. Time would tell its future.

When I discovered, soon after, all green was gone from my tree, I dragged the large ghostly carcass in its pot to the back of the house where passers-by couldn’t see it and pity it. Or look sadly at me.I mourned my loss. I showed my neighbors.“Isn’t this awful, how could this have happened?” I wanted to know. As if: how could it even think of leaving me—and after all this time?

I touched it, spoke to it, watered it. The drenching bath brought up tiny orange withered balls, that when squeezed yielded seeds. I planted them, I was joyous, my hope renewed. There might be progeny, another tiny tree waiting from a long rest within the seed.

Then I looked at my loyal old tree, now, not so beautiful, not loving, no longer giving. It was incapable.Unable, though it wished it could find the strength to warn me that: nothing is forever. Or, that something can be forever if you are very careful and patient and focused, and willing to give it your all.

In my panic of abandonment and sadness, I brought home another little tree, this one older than the one I got initially so many years ago. It has small, innocent, tender, stems with a few flowers, lush upstanding leaves, well formed and erect, pointing, like a young man in heat, upwards, to light and rain. It has already bore yellow and green fruit.

My relationship with this new tree is cautious. I don’t know what to expect of it or me. I’m on the rebound, and have to be careful whom I love, to whom I give myself.Who to trust. Who will give back to me? But sometimes you have to take a chance.

Though it is hard to bear, I am drawing away, slowly disconnecting from the loss and disappointment, and making peace with a promise that waned into the confusion of silence; a tree cannot speak without leaves and blooms. I still water it and hope for a miracle, but each day pulls me back from its bones and twigs and I can yield more to brazen objectivity; what was once beautiful is becoming what it is; an illusion borrowed over time. Or maybe it just got old.

At this time I don’t think about disposing its remains. It still deserves respect and reverence. It might even support a little bird house and continue to provide pleasure.

And what was growing right beneath it, upright though vulnerable, just might have a chance; it may become the most beautiful flowering little tree, and continue its lineage; it may be it’s mother’s way of renewing herself and carrying on.I keep thinking, it’s not gone, it’s just changed. It’s just different.

Different is fine with me.

The story begins here.

Time Passages/Al Stewart