October 3, 2013

While driving down the nearly mile long dirt lane, to our house this afternoon, Kaydenc extended her arm out the window and brushed her hand over the rust colored autumn leaves, still left clinging to their branches.

Then she said, “Mommy, I like to imagine when I see the trees that they hold the memories of all the people in the world.”

“What makes you feel that way about them?”

She replied, “Well, I can just feel it. It’s like every time a human makes their first memory, a seed is planted. And it grows into a tree. It grows bigger and bigger, with a ring for every year. And sometimes, the rings are close together and sometimes they are far apart. That could be because they had more good memories that year.”

She stopped and thought for a second, and then she said, “It’s sad that so many trees get cut down. Memories are lost. And maybe so many trees have been cut down that people forget they are their memories or someone else’s memories.”

“Mommy, I wonder if we plant trees, if people will start to remember again.”

I asked, “Remember what, exactly?”

“If they’ll remember what it was like when there were trees everywhere you look. And people were happier.”

We pulled up to the house, and I gave her a big hug. I said, “Baby, it doesn’t hurt to try. If nothing else, at least we’ll have the trees.”

It’s amazing what you can see through a child’s eyes. Revealing how much we take for granted because we’ve lost the ability to assign that sort of sentiment to something so seemingly insignificant. If only we could all sew our roots as deeply in the earth as a tree. So that we never forget we’re a part of it. And it’s a part of us.

I know I’ll never look at the trees the same again.