220627 Falling

1947 me and my first girlfriend. That's me with the big hat.

I'm a few years older now. I was out walking around the apartment complex early yesterday morning before it became terribly hot. I noticed that a tree went down from the high winds we had the night before. At first glance it looked like it had been cut at ground level, but with a close inspection the cut was not smooth as a tree taken down with a saw would be. In contrast, the base had gnarled knuckles like an arthritic hand, indicating it had been ripped from its earthly roots. Its leaves were still green as if the tree was perfectly healthy. How it maintained the leaves, after being ripped from the soil, is a mystery. I pray that when my life is ripped from the soil of mother earth that it is like the tree, swift and sure and not like an old fruit tree that dies slowly, with its leaves shriveling, branches drooping, limbs cracking and its stump rotting ever so slowly away.