The Tree of Life

I've seen many things since the time of my planting.

I've seen good men die, I've seen boys and girls grow up. I've witnessed marriages, and funerals, and celebrations of life alike. I've seen these creatures that are called "human" or "people" hold hands and celebrate. I've seen them shoot each other down with their guns, all in the name of peace. I've seen them create, and destroy.

The first human I ever met was an older man. I know him only by what his saplings called him, "Pop-pop". So that's what I came to know him as.

Pop-pop was the man who planted me. Sprung from a tiny little acorn found in his son's property. I heard the story that he'd tell his saplings as they ate and drank beneath my branches.

"Well I was walking around ol' Jamie's land and that's when I saw it," he's say in that voice of his. It sounded like the shutters on the house knocking against the walls when the wind ruffled my leaves. "It was this little acorn, underneath one of the most magnificent oak trees I'd ever seen in my life. Well I thought to myself, 'I can't let such a beautiful sprout get eaten by the squirrels, now can I?'

"So, I bunded him up and took him home and planted him in my backyard. I wasn't sure if he'd take, but here he is. And isn't he beautiful? Prettiest sapling I've ever seen in my life." Whenever Pop-pop would reach that part of the story, he'd reach out and pat my branches with a look of what I now know is love in his eyes. This was back when I was a young sprout, when I didn't know what the world had to offer. Things were nice then.

"It's a shame," Pop-pop would always finish. "That I won't get to see him grow into a full oak."

I never knew what he meant when he said that. After all, I was just a sapling. I didn't know about the humans; how much shorter their lives were than us trees. The trees don't die; not unless the earth decides our time is up. But these people, they weren't built to grow and stand tall for forever. They were built to love and to create and to destroy, and their bodies soon expire.

It was a few days after Pop-pop had stopped visiting me when they dug a hole underneath my roots, and buried him under me. His flesh turned to dust, and it gave me the nutrition to grow stronger, just as he would have wanted me to.

Pop-pop's land went to his son, but he soon abandoned the property for something referred to as "The Civil War". That was where I learned the brutality of mankind. What species kills and destroys in the name of peace? What species sacrifices thousands of good young men for something as inconsequential as the color of uniform; the color of skin?

I witnessed brutality. Before long, Pop-pop's body was not the only that lay beneath my roots. The humans were vicious. They used my bark as a shield, bullets piercing my flesh instead of theirs. They used my branches to get an advantage on their brothers. It was a dark time.

But all clouds clear, eventually. And the sun appeared, and the bloodshed ceased. For the time being, anyways. A new family took Pop-pop's place, and I met more humans of good hearts. Good souls. Ones who created and loved, instead of destroyed.

One sticks out to me in familiar. I watched her birth from my place outside of her window. They called her Sara. She grew beneath me.

Sara reminded me of myself when I was first a sapling. So strong, so resilient despite the pressures placed upon her. When she was just a seed, she would crawl under the shade that I gave her and pull at the grass beneath her branches. When she was a sprout, she began trying to climb. She never made it very far, but she never gave up. Chubby sticks scaling my trunk, falling back to the ground with a thump.

But despite every dent in her bark, she kept climbing. Higher and higher. And she grew, and she learned how to climb. By the time she was a sapling, she had reached my lower branches. And I could not be more proud of her.

Sara spent her time with me, just as Pop-pop did. She would climb my trunk and sit high up in my branches and read stories every day. She gave me water, but more importantly, she gave me her company. I wasn't alone. She took care of me.

The time came where I did not see Sara for a time, and I began to wonder when it would be that she was buried beneath me as well. Just when I gave up hope, she returned.

However, Sara had changed. With her, she brought a man, who she called Henry. And Sara, well Sara had saplings of her own.

But she greeted me with the same excitement and love that she had for me in her youth. And I knew that things would not change.

I watched as Sara and her mate raised their sprouts. I watched as their saplings sat under my shade and spent their days playing in my branches. I watcher her saplings leave, but Sara stayed. I watched as Sara began to wilt as Pop-pop did, and I watched as Sara was buried beneath my trunk.

Since then, I have watched hundreds of other humans pass by my branches. I watched as saplings grew, and as trees wilted. I watched great stones rise around me, but I stood strong.

I am telling you this because now the stone threatens to overtake me. The humans want to build a city. They want to execute me and my brothers as they have executed their own kind. They do not understand. They don't understand the lives that I've seen, how many generations are connected through my branches. They don't understand what I am.

But you do. You understand. You understand how we are all connected; from the water that flows through my branches to Pop-pop's bones underneath my roots. You understand.

So do not let them destroy me and my brothers. Do not let them tear us down. Protect my kind, as I have protected yours.