I saw a tree fall the other day.
My friend and I were on an afternoon #girlwalk through a humid, sticky portion of the Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve, simply catching up as we typically do. As we were turning to head back to the car, she stopped and drew my attention with a simple "Look."
I heard her, and then I heard it.
I turned quickly enough to see a tree go from standing nearly a hundred feet tall on the edge of a rough clearing to an adornment on the forest floor within seconds.
It was beautiful.
It was also spooky. It was spooky because not ten full minutes before we witnessed this occurrence, we were having a full conversation about how neither of us had ever seen a tree fall and the mysteries it presented for us.
"I wonder how they fall. You think someone cut them down?" my friend inquired.
"No way, they definitely fell on their own. Look at how jagged the stumps are. Definitely fell."
"Oh, that's sad."
"I find it quite beautiful, actually." I pointed to a fallen log right off the side of the trail. "See, they just become homes for other things like moss and mushrooms. I heard wasp queens hibernate in fallen tree limbs, too! They still have purpose after they fall. Isn't that rad?"
Within hours, I'd be eating my words. Within days, I'd be fighting to believe them.
Two hours after this magnificent tree came crashing down, so too did a 52-day-old dating experience that I truly prayed would never end. But it came crashing down, as swiftly and decidedly as the tree I witnessed earlier.
But from that experience in loss paired with bearing witness to the marvel of a natural occurrence many have never seen, I have found my lessons much faster than I have in the past. May they center you in seasons of loss as they’ve centered me!
When the tree fell, we heard the crack – the tree disconnecting from its trunk – and then a final thud as it connected to the soil beneath it in its final resting space. And then, there was silence.
That fallen tree will not cause the devastation of the nature preserve. It hardly even disturbed its neighboring trees, perhaps only knocking a couple limbs off in its descent. What it will do is be reincorporated into the ecosystem in its new capacity as a fallen tree.
There was no noise once the tree came to rest. There was no grief. The forest did not weep over the fallen tree. In time, it will be reclaimed and redispersed as energy in other beings to come. But upon its fall, there was nothing there. If we had not been there, would anyone have known that it had fallen at all?
The lesson here is not to reject grief or tears. The lesson is to embrace the silence after the final thud of the tree. To accept your fate. To call it what it is. The lesson is to find peace in the jagged tree trunk as the only remains of what once was a tall, towering tree high amongst its kind.
I’ve practiced this week the skill of accepting my fate and choosing quite fervently to cling to my reality as tightly as possible. I wept, I assure you. But then I embraced the silence and in it started to hear the comforting hum of the rest of my life flowing with purpose in spite of. Anyway.
Many wasp colonies find a hollow log from a dead tree to be their perfect home. Many wasp queens hibernate there for the winter, finding refuge in its unwieldly shape and unmoving position.
When something we think we want comes crashing down, it is not our first thought to imagine how it can be repurposed for something later. But that, my friend, is often the most important time to engage your imagination.
I'm not encouraging delusion, though. Once a tree has fallen, there is no putting it back up. But what I am encouraging is the pondering of just how many ways this forgotten hope, failed dream, or broken heart can be rinsed, reused, and recycled into something better, something more alive, something more useful to you than it is in its current state.
I will never forget seeing that tree fall. We didn't have time to pull out our phones and record, but it was such a profound experience that I truly hope that I never forget it for the rest of my life.
When the 52-day dating experience came to an end hours later, I had enough sense to thank God for each day of having exactly what I wanted. I had sense enough to lock in about what was real, honor that, and release it without leaving claw marks in its wake.
And that commitment to release inspired by the very nature I’m surrounded by almost certainly is the reason behind the dramatically shorter and less intense grieving period for this loss than similar losses I’ve taken in the past. The forest has taught me how to say thank you and grow around change and loss.
Seeing that tree fall taught me that it’s okay for things to fail out loud. To fall even if someone’s watching. The forest will live. It will move on. And it’d behoove me to do the same.
Thalia is finding the bravery, day by day, to try even if it means being seen as a failure. Her bravery is rooted in the fact that even when she loses, she is still a winner. A victor. Triumphant. Every single time.
