I think that I shall never see
A poem more lovely than a tree.

It was a beautiful oak tree, standing by the side of the footpath. It was obviously more than a hundred years old, perhaps as much as five hundred years old. It was home to innumerable crawling, flying and scampering things, and shed its branches over the path, giving welcome shade.

We stopped under those branches and looked up at the sunshine glinting through all the green leaves and listening to a bird singing somewhere in the top branches. Then, my husband noticed something. “Look,” he said, “It’s hollow.”

He was right, the middle of the tree was hollow, from just above ground level to as high as I am myself. The trunk curved around the dark space at the centre of the tree.

I wondered how many of us feel like that, hollow inside. I know that, in my bad times, I feel as if I am empty and have nothing to give. This tree showed me, however, that even when everything seems hollow, I am still able to give to the world.

There needs, however, to be a structure of giving that is built in the good times. I don’t think that oak was always hollow, I don’t know when it became hollow – although, from the look of it, many, many years ago. It grew its branches, though, when it was younger. Oaks take about 300 years to grow and then spend another 300 in maturity. They can live up to 1,000 years.

When you build structure in the good times, it continues to serve you in the bad times. I have a commitment to write this blog every week. Every Monday or Tuesday, come what may, I sit down at the keyboard and write. I have a commitment to walk with my friend every Thursday. In the bad times, when I cannot walk, she comes here. She suffers from depression too and so our walks and talks are mutual therapy. Every third Wednesday in the month, there is a meeting of my bipolar group. Although everyone would understand if I wasn’t there because I was too ill, I try to go if at all possible. Again, this is mutual support. There is my book club, the church and most of all, my family. When times are dark, and my family have to look after me, I know I do still love them, even though I’m not able to feel any of that love. More importantly, they know that too.

Just like that hollow tree, we give so much more than we think we do, and we are far more alive than we think we are.

Mary

A Moodscope member