A young girl wandered through the forest near her house, as only children can, with a mind full of dragons, goblins, ents, and fairies. In her play, she came across an old orange osage, massive and shady at its base. She rest there from the day’s play, and continued to do so each day, first for weeks, then for years.
She left home to pursue her studies, and then her career. When she returned home to care for her parents, she found the old osage to be in failing health as well. After she buried her parents in the family plot, she sat again beneath its shade, taking the comfort it gladly offered.
Over time, the osage went white, and began to crack its bark. The girl, now a lady, would water it each day, but age takes a toll harder than any hose spigot can remedy. Similarly, her family home began to show its age, with shingles falling asunder and beams becoming infested.
One day, a lumberjack visited, and gesturing toward the towering hardwood, as well as her crumbling home, offered a very generous price for the lumber. The lady refused with such vehemence that the lumberjack would never return. That night, the rain fell through her roof to her bedroom, and the freshwater from the sky mixed with her own salted tears.
The next day, the lady said a final goodbye to the old osage, and set a saw to it. After a long day of careful cutting, the old tree crashed to the forest floor, shaking loose yet a few more shingles from her home.
The following year was full of sawn beams, cut shingles, and all manner of small injuries of the type one only sustains while working on one’s home. In time for the first rains, the lady sat down on her porch, let out a deep sigh, and looked to the broad stump while she laid a hand on the deep amber railing from that same tree. She spoke the only words that we have for moments like those,
“Thank you.”
The winter was hard, but every moment in her home was dry and warm. As spring broke, the woman sat on her porch once again, hand on the railing, looking at that old stump she had sat beneath so many years ago. All of a sudden, she leapt up, running to the giant remains of the old osage. All around her, for twenty yards around, were tiny osage saplings, burst from the ground from the long winter. They all spoke the only words that we have for moments like that spring morning,
“Thank you.”