The Giving tree, and she loved a little boy.

—

The boy would visit her every day when he was small. He climbed her branches and swung from her limbs and ate her fruit and slept in her shade. And the tree“>the tree loved him.

For it made her happy.

Deeply happy. Quietly happy. Perfectly happy.

The boy crowned himself her leaves and pretended to be king of the forest. He would carve his name into her skin. He would shout from her tallest branches just to feel his voice echo through the stillness of the air.

And there was nothing the giving tree loved more.

“I love you, Tree.”

“I love you too,” the tree whispered back to him. In as much as the giving  trees can whisper without voice or words but with their whole heart.

That was enough. For a long time that was everything.

—

But children grow up.

The boy came visiting less frequently as time went on. Less and less until one day he came back from an extended absence. Taller than before. Older. Quiet. And in his eyes was something that hadn’t been there before.

Wanting.

“I need money,” he said to her. “I want things. Things to do, things to play with. I gotta have money.”

The tree considered this for a moment.

“I don’t have money,” the giving tree told him. “But I do have apples. Take my apples and sell them at the market. You’ll make money.”

And the boy climbed up into her branches and stripped her of every apple and took them all with him.

And the giving  tree was happy.

—

He never returned for many seasons.

When he did come back he was much older. What had been wanting in his eyes had morphed into greed.

“I want a house.” He told the tree, kicking at her roots. “I want to build myself a home. Somewhere warm. Somewhere safe.”

She thought about this carefully.

“I cannot give you a house,” the giving  tree said sadly. “But I can give you my branches. Cut me down and make a house for yourself.”

And the boy took a blade to her and chopped down every branch. Stripped the giving tree of all its pieces and left with them all.

And the tree was happy. Quietly. Sad happiness. She was not full in the sun like she used to be. But she was happy.

He returned again.

Older still.

His eyes had filled with something that now resembled sadness or regret or perhaps just tiredness; the kind of exhaustion only felt by a man who had spent too long searching for something and couldn’t remember what it was anymore.

“I want to go far away,” he told her.

“I want to sail away from here and start over somewhere else.”

The  giving tree stayed silent for a moment.

“I have no boat,” she finally said. “But I have my trunk. Cut me down and build a boat out of my trunk. Sail away and find happiness.”

The boy cut down her trunk and built his boat and he sailed away.

And the giving tree was happy.

Though not like before.

Before she had been whole. Standing straight up towards the sun. But now she was nothing more than an old stump sitting alone in the forgotten corner of the forest.

She waited.

________________________________

Years passed.

Decades even.

Yet she continued to wait.

Until one day the boy returned.

He was no longer a boy of course.

He was an old man himself now; frail and slow with heavy feet that moved deliberately across the ground like old people did when life had slowly taken from them bit by bit until they were unable to go on.

The tree knew him immediately.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I have nothing left that I can offer you. No pretty apples to swing from. No low branches to climb. I have given you my trunk and now I am nothing but an old stump. I am sorry.”

He stared at her silently for a moment.

“I do not need much these days,” he whispered at last. “All I need is a nice quiet place to sit down and rest.”

The tree held herself up as proudly as an old stump could.

“Well,” she murmured. “An old stump is perfect for sitting and resting upon. You can sit with me.”

The old man obliged and sat down on her stump.

And she was happy.

________________________________

The End.

Some love loves and loves and asks nothing in return.

That love is the purest and strongest kind.

Goodnight, my little darling. ♥️🌙.

If you want to read more like this, click here: The Very Hungry Caterpillar