On winter and trees and life

 “I’m pretty sure it’s dead. And I killed it.” I said it bluntly, like an unfelt confession.

We bought a new house in the summer of 2015, and the crepe myrtle in the front yard was beaming life and flowers, contributing to the curb appeal that helped win our hearts. When winter came that year, the tree resembled something more of a naked cluster of dead branches. They were pointing in all different directions, crossing over and under one another, tangled and menacing. I knew it needed to be pruned back, but I had no clue how to do it. So, I called that person in my life who knows how to do all the things and is always happy to transfer to me the next skill I need to master.

“Mom, can you show me what to do with this thing?”

Long story short, we pruned that thing, all right. We cut so much away that I was sure it would never come back.

Weeks went by, maybe months and I watched it do nothing. It was bare. It was ugly. There was no sign of life. A continual confirmation that I had no business owning as set of pruning shears.

That’s the funny thing to me about winter and trees and life. Everything looks dead against a frigid February sky. But it’s not. Inside that crepe myrtle there was a host of preparations being made. Inside and unseen it was beginning to wake up. It was instinctively starting the process of unfreezing dormant cells – cells that would eventually carry water again and deliver nutrients to the furthest leaf on the tip of the outermost branch. Cells that would turn everything green again and shoot out new branches and produce new flowers that would once again attract bees and butterflies and curb appeal.

And then one day, as if it had all happened instantly, I noticed it. The tiniest green buds were forming on the bark. A significant change had taken place while no one was looking. It was alive, and I felt the thrill of it as if I were a new mother all over again. Within weeks it was fully awake with greenness and fullness, and a couple of months later it was budding flowers just like the year before.

This is the miracle of spring. Life, growth and hope suddenly teeming from what was once frozen and unresponsive. A picture of resurrection.

While spring is largely a time for flourishing and celebrating all that is good about life, over the last few years for me, those happier merits of the season have become delicately tempered by loss and grief and remembrance. Loss, like pruning, is painful and sometimes violent. We cry out, “it’s too much! How can I ever come back from this?” But miraculously and inevitably, it makes room for something new and necessary to grow.

I love how the weight of life and death are perfectly balanced and built into the regular course of nature. It illustrates for us that it’s not always going to be flowers and fullness and butterflies. There will be frigid winter skies and life will seem unendingly absent. Just as nature takes a winter Sabbath, so we too must allow dormancy to do its good work within us.

It’s inside that quiet stillness where the growth is really happening. And when it does get really quiet and still and cold, may I encourage you to look a little closer. Pay attention to what is happening unseen, and remember, spring is coming,

Emily