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A little story for this space...

In the woods, near where I live, is a tree that many moons ago must have been struck by lightening or undergone some similar form of trauma. I suspected as much because the the tree itself was twisted and bent, with a thick scar that ran down its trunk until where it met the ground. For years, I walked past this tree by myself or with others and often, we would stop... if only for a moment... to soak up that moment in its presence.

Many years later I would lose something I dearly loved and heavy with grief, I found myself walking that familiar path under a midnight sky, into the woods. And when I found the tree, I wrapped my arms around it, and pressed myself against it, and sobbed like I was a child because I felt as if somehow, this tree, with its horrible scar that rang from stem to stern, might be the only thing that could possibly understand.