"A Man Who Loves the Trees": Friendship, Grief and a Walk in the Woods.

"A man who loves the trees..." That's me! I climbed them as a boy oblivious that risk assessment might one day be a thing. But all the time I was strengthening muscles, and every tree climbed, was helping me attain a higher perspective from which to view the world. Trees have always been my friends, and if that sounds a bit sentimental, so be it. 

"A man who loves trees walks among them on a dark day..." Yes, that too. Within four days we received news of three deaths, each of them a loss felt at the heart's core, because each was a friend for 51 years, 48 years and 37 years respectively.

So I was walking among trees on a dark day of sorrow at such loss, of grief known as a wound that slices through the whole being. Several recently acquired sadnesses weighing on the heart, and the feeling that identity-defining stories are now closed books on a shelf that can't be opened again.

Love is never free in the exchanges and gifts of friendship. Every true and enduring friendship has its own inherent and gladly paid costs. Often enough such self-expenditure is informal, given and not demanded, but each encounter is a strand binding us in a covenant to care, to be there for and with, and to share in the happiness and hardship of each mile of our human journeying.

"A man who loves trees walks among them on a dark day for the solace he has taken always..." Solace, the gift of our presence which, when shared, becomes consolation. The verb to console describes a coming alongside to bring solace and comfort. So sometimes what I need is trees not talk, aloneness not company, silence not words. Which is why yesterday I found myself walking among the trees on a dark day, doing the work of inner adjustment to the loss of three friends. 

Wendell Berry has written many poems and essays on trees. This one is less well known than it should be:

A man who walks among the trees

walks among them on a dark day

for the solace he has taken there always

from the company of the elders,

and suddenly he sees

such a grace as in all his going

he is always going toward

though never in his foreknowing:

among duller trunks and branches

a dog-wood flower-white

lighting all the woods.

Now if much of the above seems morose then I've made one of my points. But there is more to be said and Wendell Berry says it in this poem which describes the experience of light on dark days, and the grace we are always going toward. On a dark day, in the woods, suddenly we see such a grace that falls across the paths of our going, lighting all the woods.

Yesterday, looking along an avenue of autumn trees, that "dog-wood flower-white lighting" shafted across my path. (See photo above). And that grace which is gift came as a moment of recognition, an unintended so unexpected encounter with a young deer which lasted several minutes of mutual gazing through the low hanging branches.

The thing about loss, sorrow, and grief, is that like all our strong emotions, it takes something outside of ourselves to interrupt them and help us regain emotional and spiritual equilibrium. That is neither to deny the sadness of loss or tranquilise the reality of our sorrow. Rather such graced interruptions allow us to recover enough presence of mind to know more deeply what we have lost, but without forgetting all that we have gained.

"A man who walks among the trees

walks among them on a dark day

for the solace he has taken there always..."

As one example, that 37 year friendship involved fortnightly phone calls, literary conversations, shared support when life had its dark days for either of us, mutual affection, respect, trust and what can best be called in Hebrew "hesed" by which is meant faithfulness, steadfastness, dependability, personal friendship as unspoken but unmistakable covenant.

In numbering the gifts of such a presence in our lives, we catalogue what is no longer accessible by their presence in our lives. But we also enumerate the blessing and joy of having them in our lives, the privilege and burdens of shared confidences and hopes, the sheer miracle of human commitment which grows into understanding, knowing and caring for this person who has chosen us for friend. 

That's the thing about good friendships. As Berry spells it out, such companions are a dog-wood flower white lighting all the woods - including those where we walk, on dark days.  

Comments

[Phyllis G Klein]

Walking through those woods with Wendell Berry and you. A welcome invitation.