spring

I sent a donation to the National Arbor Foundation a few weeks ago. As a thank-you gift, they promised to send me ten live trees.

I wasn't sure how they were going to manage that; I imagined a large tractor-trailer pulling up in front of my house; men wearing thick canvas gloves, covered with dirt, pounding on my front door and saying "So where d'ya want 'em, lady?"

Instead, I got a thin, 2 ½ -foot-long white plastic envelope in the mail. I opened it. There were some sticks inside, with roots; just a few roots, covered in that kind of weird absorbent jelly you find inside baby diapers if you slice them open. The sticks looked totally dead.

Trying to feel hopeful, I put them in some dirt. I watered the dirt. I looked at the sticks. Nothing happened. I thought sadly about the loss of life; the last, awful, fatal trip of these tender saplings, their final surrender to the rough handling of the US postal system. I lined the pots up on the kitchen floor, and went to do some errands.

Yesterday, I glanced at the sticks again. To my amazement, there were little green leaves sprouting out of the sticks! They’re really growing, my ten little trees!

Of course, the same miracle has been going on outside my apartment for the last couple of weeks. And I still marvel at it every spring; watching the leaves come out is always an incredible experience. But I’ve also come to expect it. It’s an expected miracle.

There was something extra-astounding about the miracle going on inside my apartment. I hadn’t expected it. I thought I knew the scoop; I thought I had it all figured out. I had conceded to the inevitability of death. But life surprised me, yet again.

It’s a good thing to find that I can’t always predict how things will turn out. And to be reminded that even when things appear hopeless, there’s still a chance for a happy ending.