He who hasn’t plant a tree in his lifetime has wasted his life.
A.P.Chekhov
Well I lived a rich and fulfilling life by this measure since I’ve planted many, many trees. The word here however is
about one particular tree I planted few years ago.
It was about 5 ft. tall when I bought it from the nursery. Some sort of a pine tree with very short and very dense needles. Not native here in California. I saw it in many places in New Zealand. Maybe it is native over there. Who knows. Anyhow I gave it a nice spot in our back yard plus dedicated watering spout and nutrients. Everything by the book. All the tree needed to do is to grow. It did grow indeed, in a strange way however. Every time the tree grew by say 1 ft. the top of it would lean dramatically sideways as it was broken. I needed to provide supporting poles all the time in order to keep it straight. As the tree grew higher and higher I needed to provide longer and longer poles. This became a challenge when the tree grew to 8 ft height and beyond. So I said “enough is enough my dear tree you are on your own from now” and I stopped adding support.
Guess what. After loosing my artificial support and realizing that it is on its own, the tree stopped leaning its top. It grows straight and healthy now. It is beautiful to look at. The old poles are still there reminding of the difficult old times.
Don’t you think that our children are like that? They can’t live without our monthly check. When the checks stop coming they somehow take their faith in their own hands and grow strong and beautiful.