Determined to Live

I want to tell you a story that only came about in our minds today.

You see the image of the tree stump with a little sprout emerging which shows that despite it being cut down, the tree refuses to die.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

We moved into our home in February 2018, and about June 2019 we got one of those ‘trim your tree or else’ notes in our letterbox.  We know our side neighbour affected, so we worked together to trim the tree back the next Saturday morning.  It’s deciduous you see, dropping leaves in the Australian Autumn (mainly April-May).  Those leaves required daily sweeping up, and our neighbour was sick of it, but also knows us and didn’t want to offend.  To be honest, I’m not the best gardener, and when my wife saw how much we took off the tree there were tears and many of them, and quite a serious angry rant!  For a little while.  But the side neighbour was happy.  And my wife came to accept what was.

Fast forward to August 2021.

Our back neighbour asked his sister (another dear neighbour of ours) to get my phone number.  I agreed that she could share it, intrigued what it might be about.  The long and the short of it was he was keen to chat, and we had that chat over the fence.  He was extremely tentative, and I think he’s had some very negative neighbour experiences.  He basically offered to pay to trim the tree, pay to cut it half down, or pay to cut the whole thing down... as you can see it’s a big stump and less than a few feet adjacent to two fences—not a good place to plant a large tree.

But he was very worried about offending us, and I must say that initially we were horrified that he was even thinking such a thing.  About 15 minutes later, however, the wisdom of the situation was plain.  He was offering to pay to fix a problem for all three of us—himself, us, and our side neighbour.  All three of us where busy cleaning our yards daily and the fences were looking more tenuous.

Quickly I went back out to the back fence and dialogued more with Frank (not his real name).  What impressed me most of all was Frank’s concern for us, giving us options, and certainly not demanding anything; we could have refused him, and I know he wouldn’t have resented it.  The cost of the tree removal was going to be about $1,500, and we wouldn’t have apportioned such funds for such a purpose.  But we knew that at some stage, the tree would need to go.

So the tree was lopped in mid-August 2021 and we got to save a couple of pieces to do some art with.

That’s where the story should finish.

But just look at that sprout!  So leafy and green and alive looking.  Signs of life.  Signs of a living thing refusing to die, determined to live.  Despite it appearing completely dead for four months.  There was still life in it.

It says something about the resilience in living things.  And it speaks to human resilience too—especially in the context of the ‘deaths’ we experience in our lives, like those dreams that flame out but birth other dreams, or those losses that deepen us if only we go there and face the truth of them, or those plans we make that seem thwarted where God demands patience of us to be content in the exile of the present situation.

Think of those things that we faced and that nearly conquered us.  They always caused us to resist what they were doing to us.  If we were abused and violated, we didn’t just sit there and take it, or if we did because of our innocence, we resisted through the seeking of justice—these are the things of life because they speak to justice which is always a restoration of balance.  If we suffered anxiety or depression or grief, somehow, we were deepened as individuals, and compensated by an enlarged empathy.  We found we needed to be resilient to claw our way out of a very deep pit, and that took courage and resourcefulness that much of the time we never knew we had.

The sprout shows us who WE are.  We’re all determined to live, just as we’re determined that others live, especially those we deeply care for.  Though we’re never truly satisfied in life, that life force in us called hope impels us to create the vision of reality we desperately seek to realise.

Finally, it reminds me of my mother and her health, and others like her, who continue diligently obeying the doctors to live as long as she and they can.  Life is precious.

Determined to live, we’re much stronger than we realise most of time.