A Tree and a Broken Heart

A TREE AND A BROKEN HEART

Sarah and Michael had been happily married for thirty years ... or so she had thought. Sarah had just found out that Michael had been having an affair for the last year. Sarah had been totally crushed when she found out. Sarah decided that she must be at fault, for there seem to be no other answer. Why would Michael go to the arms of another woman? She was willing to take part of the blame. Sarah still loved Michael very much and had hoped that the affair was over. In truth, Michael had just got better at hiding what was going on. While Michael was continuing his affair, Sarah was doing every thing she could think of to win his love again and to correct any wrongs that she thought might drive him to another woman. She no longer trusted Michael, because from time to time she would suspect that he was still seeing the other woman.

There seemed to be no one that she could talk to about her marriage with Michael. There was no way she wanted to let her kids know about Michael and the woman. She didn’t want them to turn against their father. This was between her and Michael and the kids didn’t need to know her pain. She had friends, but it seemed unfair for them to take sides because they were Michael’s friends too. Her parents were not an option as they had loved Michael as if he was their own child. They might accept him back because of her, but they would never love him as before. If the affair ended and they could rebuild their marriage, then it would be better if no one else knew. But Sarah had to have someone that she could talk to about this situation. Otherwise she felt she would go crazy.

One day as Sarah was driving home from work, she gazed at the devastation that an ice storm had done to the country side a few weeks earlier. As she looked around at the landscape, trees had been broken and bent. Sarah then began to think of the large, beautiful tree that was in her own backyard. She had loved this tree from the first time that she had seen it. It had also felt the violence of the ice storm. Before the ice storm, it had large branches that extended out from its mighty trunk. Now all that remained of this mighty tree was the main trunk and it reached high into the sky, only a few stubs of branches were left. It would be lucky if it could survive. The drive home seemed to take a long time and her thoughts drifted from her decaying marriage and her tree that had once been so beautiful. They both seemed doomed to not have a future.

Sarah felt the urgency to hurry as she began to unload the car. She realized that it was in her own mind or maybe God speaking to her, but it seemed as if the tree was calling her to come to it. So she hurried to the backyard, gazing at the mighty structure. On reaching the tree, she put her arms around it and collapsed in tears. It was such a relief to hold on to the tree and feel its massive body and let out all the emotions that had been building up from the past few months. She had found her friend and confidant at last. The tree had given her strength to not give up, so she decided that she would write in a journal to her tree. Sarah thought this might seem crazy, but she really needed to have someone to talk to. There seemed to be no other choices.

This is Sarah’s first entry in her Journal:
February, 26, 2001

My Beautiful Tree,
I write this to you because I have felt drawn to you all day. Maybe it’s because I feel this strange kinship to you. We have both gone through a recent storm in our life. You through the ice storm that has broken your beautiful branches and I losing or almost losing the person I love most. I see your pain, in the fact that you are standing like a giant post against the sky. And maybe wondering, will I survive? I too wonder if I will survive, Because I feel as if I’m dying a little each day.

You have hollow places in your great sides, where the squirrels run in and out of. Does this give you pleasure? It must, knowing that you have given the squirrels a home and a hiding place. I think that my hollow place must be in my heart. It seems that I have days of pleasure, or what I think have been good days. But then they are shattered by an email from her to Michael, finding out about another lie or something that he has hidden from me. And then the pain all comes back, stronger than ever. I ask myself why do I keep trying to save my marriage? But the answer comes from my heart, because I love him.

I felt your bark against my face as I held you tight against me. I think, I was trying to obtain some of your strength that has endured you through the years. As I felt your bark that was thick from age, I thought about my own wrinkles that came from age. How can you compare a young sapling with a mature tree? How can I compete with someone who is fifteen years younger? You at least grew more beautiful with the years and I seem only to get older and show more symptoms of the aging process. My beauty or what there was of it seems to be fading fast. Dear tree, how can I compete with someone who has never had a baby. There are so many changes that can happen to your body as you bring a new life into this world.

Until this last winter you had your beauty and then it was taken from you in one night. In my mind and soul I will always remember how beautiful you were. I see you now standing tall with no limbs but still I see your beauty. I wonder if anyone can see my beauty? It maybe fading on the outside, but I think that my beauty must be inside my heart. If I didn’t have some beauty in my heart, how could I feel such love for my family. To love someone so much that tears of joy comes to my eyes when my husband touches or hugs me. There must be some kind of beauty in me or why would he have stayed with me?

After the ice storm your great branches were left hanging. Did you feel this was the end for you? How could anything be worse for you? You were so mangled. Then to have the remaining limbs that were barely attached cut off. Did you feel pain? I feel as if I had the same kind of storm in my life. Mine is emotional. I have survived the storm but I felt as if pieces of my world are being destroyed. I stand tall trying to make the world think that my marriage is okay. I try not to show my pain. And like your limbs that were left hanging, my emotions are hanging on too. I’m never sure if my emotions are going to come crashing down from new information about Michael’s affair. I seem to be waiting to see just how much of me is going to survive before the pain cuts my heart in too again. Losing parts of your life of which you have no control over, I didn’t know it could cause such pain. I have always loved Michael. So why has it taken me so long to realize how deep that love has grown through the years? Is this the wrong that I have done? Was it not showing how much I love him, that has almost made me lose him. I pray that I will never again forget how important Michael is to me. But I wait for the saw! Will he leave me and I will be left with the scars of what we could have been together or will he stay with me and longing to be with her? My pain comes from the things that I have no control over and the actions of Michael. I feel that I am completely at his mercy, because he has given up on our marriage.

Dear Tree, your roots are deep into the earth and you are standing on secure ground. But do you feel safe? You have been damaged so badly from the ice storm. It must be your roots, which continues to make you stand so proudly. I have roots that also go deep. I have thirty years into this marriage. Maybe a lot has happened during this time, but our marriage has survived the fun times and sad times. We have survived the trials of children, lack of money and emotions. Do you think that I will survive the affair? I seem to be the only person that is trying to rebuild this marriage. I just want love, trust, respect and honesty in this marriage. There has to be more to a marriage than what I have now, sharing the man I love with his mistress! I cannot tell you of the pain that I feel, know that he is in love with her and not wanting to let go of her. Why can’t he let go of her and just love me? He knows the pain that I feel and he still won’t let go.

Dear Tree, will we survive until the spring? Will you heal yourself? Will I survive until then too? I live from hour to hour, day by day, week by week. I try to understand what kind of hold she has on his heart. He says that he loves me, but if that was true nothing or no one would stand in the way. I believe that the physical part of the affair is over. But he is still involved with her. I know this because of the emails and phone calls. I wonder how he can tell me that he still loves me, but doesn’t hide the fact that he is still writing to her or calling her. I continue to live on this roller coaster but it seems as if it will never end.

So Dear Tree, we both wait! You for the Spring and the coming year, to see if you will be able to grow your branches back. I wait to see if he will stay with me and really try to rebuild our marriage. I don’t think that I will have to wait for a year, for I think that my future will be revealed before then. I wait to see if we will both survive what life has given us, and the waiting is almost unbearable.

It was reassuring that day as I put my arms around you. I just wanted to capture a little of that strength to help me go on. Thank you for the strength that I gained that day. I realize that you face death if you do not recover from the damage that has happened to you and I will continue to live but apart of me will die too. I love you, dear tree. I think that we are alike. Both of us are broken, you physically and me emotionally. We both wait to see what the future has in store for us, with no control over the events. The waiting can be such a helpless feeling. You have become my best and dearest friend and the only one that I can talk to. I pray for our survival. In my heart I will always see your beauty and strength, before and after the storm. I love you, my beautiful tree.