The Giving Tree

I had one of those precious Happy Zaydee (my preferred grandfather moniker) conversations with Eliana, my seven-year-old granddaughter.

She was reading The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, from the canon of American childhood literature. The book offers a reflection on the passages in life. You probably know the story. The young boy loves his tree. The tree freely offers its branches for climbing and its fruit for eating. The tree is happy to give. And then, kind of Puff the Magic Dragon like, the boy becomes distracted by other things. He stops coming around. Nu? Life happens and none of us remain children. A bit sad. A bit wistful. But who would really want life to stand still?

Ultimately, the tree offers its branches and its trunk to the boy so he can build a ship to head off to his adult life. The tree, once vibrant, is now a lonely stump. But it is still happy because it is a “giving” tree and it gave everything it had to make the boy happy.

Decades later the boy, now an old man returns to his neglected friend, the giving tree. Life’s adventures are over. The boy has come home. He leans on a cane. He is clearly tired. Life has worn him out. The tree, after quite literally giving its all, has nothing more to offer its old friend. The old man desires nothing either but a place to sit and rest. He sits on the stump. The tree is happy. I am not sure about the man. But the tree is happy.

We talked some about friendship. Friendship is more than just giving. It is also about taking. Friendship should fill you up too. “Was the boy a friend to the tree?” I asked.

And then we talked about the man getting older.

Eliana looked around at the family pictures on the bookshelf, and focused on this one from January, 1985.

“That looks like Grandma Loves You,” Eliana observed.

“Yes it is. Isn’t she pretty?!” I replied. “I think she is still pretty, don’t you?”

“Who is the baby?

“That’s your Daddy. He was Judah’s age.”

“Who is that man?”

“Look closely, sweetheart. Who do you think he might be?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look again. Who do you think he is?”

“I don’t know, Happy Zaydee. Who is he?”

“That is me when I was thirty-one years old.”

“Oh.”

And we sat in silence for a few minutes while I watched the gears in her brain whirl around.

“Come on baby, time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed.”

We ambled off to the sink.

“Happy Zaydee, do you want to live forever?”

“Do you want me to, Eliana?”

“Yes, I don’t want you to ever die.”

“Eliana, I don’t want to die either because I love you so much. But I don’t want to live forever. Life gets hard and we run out of energy. I want to die when I am finished with life. I hope I will be ready. Living forever is something nobody should want. I miss my grandparents and my parents, but in a funny kind of way, I am glad that they died and that you have come into my life instead. Death is a good thing when it comes at the right time.”

“I love you Happy Zaydee.”

“I love you too, Eliana. I will always love you. Even when I am gone, I will love you forever. That’s the thing about love. It never dies.”

Being a grandfather is wonderful. (Being Happy Zaydee is better, but I will leave that for another newsletter.) I think of my own grandparents and great grandparents too. Often.

We are given grandparents to love us unconditionally, to give us, like the tree mentioned above, everything from their branches. Candy and cookies and trips and special conversations and sleepovers and Shabbat dinners; these are the blessings we receive from our grandparents.

But there is one more special gift we can learn from our grandparents. They can teach us about life and death and that space in between. They can teach us not to be afraid of the passing of the years. They can teach us that the end of life can be a good thing and how necessary it is for the soul to live beyond the body. They can show us that love lives forever and even death does not destroy love.

My grandparents taught me about love. I will teach my grandchildren the same lessons to help them as they grow older. Death should be our friend and love does not disappear.

If we are fortunate, we can all be giving trees to the people we love.

But, still, hold on to your branches.

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I live in suburban Washington, DC. Washington is either the southern reaches of the north or the northern perimeter of the south. It is hard to define. But everyone is in a rush here—too busy to talk and engage in conversation, unless of course there is some business to be done.

Not so the southern receptionist. (Yes, you read that right.) Call an office in the south and the chances are that if they know you, the receptionist will make small talk, ask you about your children and share a weather report.

Elsie and Gloria, the two receptionists in Take My Dog, my still unpublished novel will crack you up. They are so charming and so endearing and so maddening at the same time. I love these women. In the south, nobody is too busy for a little gossip and news.

Please enjoy and stay tuned. Backwards and Forwards will appear, again, magically in your inbox in a few weeks. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a note at backwardsforwards.newsletter@gmail.com.

If you know people who might appreciate Backwards and Forwards, please forward this to them and tell them to hit the SUBSCRIBE button. Previous issues of my newsletter can be easily accessed at www.jonathan-miller.net.

Whether we are going backwards or forwards, none of us is standing still. And successful people can move both forwards and backwards at the same time.

Until next time, shalom,

Jonathan