The Forest That Grew From Love

"Papa, tell me how this forest came to be" she said.

Well Peyton, not all of this story is a happy one, but sit down here beside me and I will begin. A hundred years ago this place was just a field. "

"Papa!" Gage bellowed. "Don’t start the story without me." He flung himself through the air, landing in his grandpa’s lap. Caleb, two years older than the other two tried to act uninterested but hung on his every word.

"Ok, where was I? Oh yeah. Prairie grass, tall and waving in the wind, stood right in the spot we camp. A river partly circled this spot, forming a horseshoe bend. An Indian tribe lived on either side of this place, but no one lived in the center. In the beginning the two tribes did not trust each other, and this was neutral ground. Now on the East bank lived a Kiowa Tribe and a certain boy named Thundering Bear. On the opposing bank the Choctaw people lived with a little girl named Willow.

One day they both wandered to the prairie field. The two became fast friends and met there often. As time went on they fell in love, and on their seventeenth year they wed by the harvest moon. The two tribes were furious but finally the elders gave in and decided to let them live on the prairie meadow that fell between them.

They enjoyed many years together. They had two sons and a daughter. They were blessed to see them all wed and the grandchildren that were added to their namesake. Now Willow loved the forest and the songs sang by nature. She especially loved to hear the wind. Many an evening she sat on a large boulder by the river’s edge and listened to the babbling waters and the wind walking through the trees. She never outgrew her love for this place even after years of living kept her from climbing on the boulder.

On her seventy-first birthday, just as the sun rose and the wind crept up the prairie side to meet her, she died. Her husband laid her to rest next to the lodge where they spent their lives and at the foot of her grave planted a willow. In hopes that the wind would keep her company. Now as time would have it, and before the next full moon he joined her. It was not by chance that the next full moon was the harvest moon, and on that night under the evening stars each member of the family planted either a tree, a flower or bush, and this great forest in which we sit was formed.

It took only twelve short years to build this forest and on the thirteenth year the family had spread across the country like the wind, that Willow loved. Now each year on the harvest moon Willow’s children’s children take a tree, a flower or bush home with them in tribute to their love.