Looking Up At Trees

Out of my window I can see the eucalyptus trees swaying in the wind. The leaves are rustling and the sunlight is falling in dappled rays. A smaller tree in front, with tortoise shell bark, has bright green leaves that turn a luminous yellow with the backlight. Everything is moving, fanning out and springing back, branches crossing each other, lifting and falling. The wind grows louder, like rushing water, and then still. There is silence. The trees are frozen. The image outside the window looks like a photograph. But gradually, inevitably, in slow and subtle shifts, the branches begin to sway once more.

There is something wonderful about looking up at trees. It is at once serene and chaotic. Trees are full of change, from the leaves to the bark. The arbitrary path of the branches is beauty in its most natural form.

I’ve looked to trees at some of the most chaotic times in my life and found peace in the rustling leaves. I am reminded that, regardless of any drama currently occurring in my own small world, nature perseveres. Life and beauty persevere.

But what if you looked up at the trees and they made you sad?

I am trying to imagine what that would be like.

I am imagining with my heart, because it is breaking. It is breaking because my dad is laying in a strange bed in a strange room looking up at trees and feeling sad.

The trees begin to look very far away. I see, instead, the windows. Then the blinds. The room. My hands. And soon the darkness behind my eyes.

When our hearts are heavy, the darkness feels like the only safe place left. It makes us close the curtains, lock the door and hide under the covers. And this is what I do when I feel overwhelmed by changes. I am beginning to imagine how much more I would want to hide if I had cancer and was racked with pain. Life would seem too beautiful. Too bright.

It’s nice to hear him laugh. But I know that the trees today represent everything that will be lost. The green leaves are markers of life continuing on, and leaving us behind. What can I say? Me, in the midst of life, surrounded by the swaying branches, feeling the warm sunlight on my face? Life is precious.

So precious.

Every vein on every leaf, every finite movement, every microscopic reaction as the sunlight pours down, shrouding us all in the same glowing cloth. Every sigh. Every word. Every silence.

I can’t tell him that he should not be sad. Sadness is love, and his heart is breaking for love of life. To be sad, for a while, is to remind ourselves of how deeply we feel. But gradually, inevitably, with slow and subtle shifts, the heart begins to rejoice once more.