Opening Reflection
This is a story about a spruce tree. Not a decoration. Not a seasonal fixture. But a friend, alive, radiant, and dignified being. She stood in silence, bearing witness to strangers, weather, and time. This post honors her life, her quiet presence, and the sacred grief that followed her absence. This memorial is for all beings discarded too soon.
May these words serve as a blessing and remembrance.
In memory of a spruce who was seen, loved, and never discarded
I stood quietly near the entrance to the small market park, next to a bushy, green spruce, perhaps six or seven feet tall. Dressed in decorations for the season, the gorgeous tree greeted the cold with stillness, offering its beauty to strangers who rarely stopped to thank it.
When I visited the market, I paused and looked at the friendly tree. Sometimes to admire, sometimes to speak, and always to feel. The long, narrow needles, soft like whispers, still held their color even as more began to fall. The tree was still alive. And I felt like the tree knew and noticed me, too.
The holiday season was over. Rain came yesterday, steady and merciless. I knew what was coming. But I didn’t think it would happen so soon.
When I approached the tree for what would be the last time, I placed both hands gently on the branches. I whispered my gratitude for everything, for sharing our lives, for being here, my sorrow, and my love. “You were never just decoration,” I told my gentle friend. “You are a living sentient being, and I see you.” My tears mixed with the rain.
That evening, I returned to find the majestic tree gone.
My soul was empty and silent. I parked the car needlessly, as if I was going to go to the store. But something pulled me back, back to the entrance to the park, back to the empty space. I looked at the ground and saw the precious needles still lying around in the darkness and rain. I quickly bent to gather fallen needles like they were sacred dust. In the dark, a voice startled me. A man was questioning what I “got”. I was annoyed and frustrated, but answered cautiously, grieving. The man told me he was in charge of the park. And then, perhaps sensing the depth of what this tree meant to me, he opened the gate.
Inside the wooden enclosure, I saw the trunk of my precious tree, already cut into pieces and wet, still breathing with the memory of life. I stood behind a metal fence, unable to come closer, watching as he sawed off branches and filled my box I’d brought earlier that day with the green remains of life… A box I had prepared in the car in case I found another lost life, the little opossum that had earlier run through the busy road. The box was never used for him.
The man said he would burn the rest.
I don’t remember what I said. Maybe nothing, or mumbled something inaudible. Maybe, everything was said between the branches I carried to the car, in the tears I could not stop, the way I held each needle like it was star dust, because it was.
Now the branches rest in water in my home. I gently gathered the needles that had fallen on my porch with care and placed them close to the oak tree I love. I tucked one inside my phone case, with a white feather from the day another dear one had suffered. All of them are together now, in my space, in a quiet corner of my soul.
This story of the friendly, lively spruce tree is about love, fierce, grieving, unflinching love for what the world deems disposable. This is a story of memory, sacredness, and keeping vigil even when there is no grave. The story about the bond between two beings that met in silence and rain.
The gorgeous, majestic tree was never a thing.
The tree is a living, sentient being.
And she will never be forgotten.
🌲 Closing Reflection
Let this story remind us that what we love, we must see. Not as props in our holiday moments, or background to our days, but as companions, witnesses, and kin.
We are called to be stewards of remembrance, to hold what others forget, to love what the world passes by. The spruce was not discarded. She was carried home in spirit. And in telling this story, her roots grow deeper still.
Let this post be a blessing for all trees discarded and forgotten. Let these words stand as a reminder that even one witness, one voice that sees the sacredness of a being, is enough to change the story.