A Word from the Wise

It was right after she left me that I received the best advice I've ever had.

Eight happy years collapsed from beneath my feat in a terrible morning, an argument hat no words could resolve for her mind was made up as to her future and I was to be no more a part of it than a painful memory, another face to fade into obscurity. She handed me back my great grandmother's heirloom ring and without a tear in her eye walked out the door and never turned back.

The pain of losing my one true love felt unbearable. A dagger in my back that I could reach the handle with blood-soaked fingers just enough to nudge but never firmly grasp enough to pull free, every attempt digging the blade deeper into the sinew of my being. I thought it would never end.

It was in the turmoil of my pain that a dear friend sat me down, and gave me his wisdom on pain and suffering.

He said to me that the scars people leave on our being never truly heal. People say time heals all wounds, and perhaps time can staunch the bleeding but the scar will always remain.

He led me to the shade of a solitary birch, broad and towering amongst a stand of similar trees. Into its trunk were carved letter, intitials, names. Grey-black scars on ivory bark. He gestured to a marking the size of my palm that read "M+K, 1989" and said:

Thirty-one years this has been here, and yet it hasn't faded. The tree is still damaged, still scarred. Thirty-one years ago, this probably wrapped halfway around the trunk, but now look. No bigger than my hand, and yet I can barely reach around the tree with both.

It was true - the carving stood stark against the bark, barely spanning a third of its width.

This is an old scar, and over the years it hasn't gone away. Hasn't even gotten smaller. But it did not kill the tree. The tree grew bigger, and as the tree grew bigger, that scar became a smaller and smaller piece of the whole. It's still there, it always will be, but every day the tree grows, it becomes less significant. It becomes merely a mark of a memory long past.

He gestured to the other carvings, other markings, other dark eyeholes where branches snapped off and deer antlers rubbed and teenaged lovers professed their commitment.

And maybe one day whoever carved it will see it again, but it will not be the only carving; it will simply be one story cut short amongst a thousand more etched into a tree ever growing. The scars people leave on our hearts will never go away, but with time, they become smaller pieces of us because like this tree, we are always growing.

And my hands ran along the trunk, and feeling each age-old scar, I understood.