When a Tree Is Not Just a Tree

Dear Reader,

Poet Stanley Kunitz saw a garden’s cycles as a metaphor for our lives. Because the third anniversary of my sister, Jennie’s, death from ovarian cancer is this month, I will tell this story.

When is a tree not just a tree?

In the days when she could still drive, she brought me to another neighborhood and showed me a tree. We couldn’t identify the species, but it was about 30 feet tall, deciduous and, because it was summer, in full leafy abundance. However, the tree was nearly supine, leaning at an extreme angle, as if in a stop-action freefall. The roots were still underground, so year after year, it endured. Jennie always slowed down to look at this quirk of nature.

Now the tree had become a symbol, a metaphor for her struggle to stay alive. She said, “I’m not down yet, like this tree” and snapped a picture with her phone.

I used to pray that no wind or ice would lay this oddity down for good - until the tree became just a tree again on March 10, 2016.