The mightly Oak

When I was a kid our garden was long a thin, and in the middle stood a mighty acacia tree. The tree was so big it hid most of the top of the garden. I used to go up behind the tree to hide from the house, so I could play with my imaginary friends. One day I found an acorn, I was about 8 I think, and I decided to plant the acorn, and grow it into an oak tree that I could lie beneath and watch the green leaves against the blue sky. Of course oak trees are very slow growing, and after a few weeks I completely forgot about my oak tree dream. A few years later I was once again at the top of the garden, and I noticed a small sapling growing by the fence, and I remembered my oak tree. I was happy that it had started to grow. But it was still so tiny, and I realised that I would never see it grow into a full tree, it can take 80-100 years for an oak to grow to be 100 or more feet tall, with a canopy spread of 150 or more feet.

I forgot all about my oak tree, until one day, many years later, my mother was selling the family home to move into a smaller place more suited to a retired single lady. She was showing some people round the house, and I had gone over to help her sort out the junk that had accumulated over the 40 years that she had lived there. The man of the family wanted to see the garden, so I agreed to take him on a quick tour, and we walked up to the acacia tree. It was by now, twice the height of the house, with a huge canopy that stretched across three gardens. As a child I had climbed that tree by pulling myself up from a low branch, my father had eventually cut the branch off because of the injuries I sustained each time I climbed the tree, but the stump stood out proudly. Now, however, the stump had been swallowed up by the trunk as it had continued to grow. I was stunned by the difference. I realised I hadn't been to the top of the garden in over 10 years. I looked around at the differences in the garden. The brambles that had yielded wonderful berries every fall had taken over most of the fence at the end, and the grass grew over hip high. The once beautiful rose beds had been badly neglected and the skeletal remains of the roses were tangled with creeping weeds. The man asked me what kind of trees they were, and I informed him that the big one was acacia, there were also weeping willows, elm trees, ash trees and beech trees in the hedges. “What about that one?” He asked, and I looked to the fence. “Oh!” I exclaimed, “my oak tree!” What had once been a forgotten acorn, planted so many years ago, was now a proud oak tree, standing nearly 20 feet tall, with a full and wide canopy. I gazed upwards and watched as the beautiful green leaves waved gently in the breeze, and I was overcome with emotion as I remembered my childhood dream.

I never got the chance to fall asleep on the grass beneath my oak tree, because that family bought the house, and my mother moved out a couple of weeks later. I have thought about going back to see if my tree is still there, but I know I would be devastated if they had cut it down. They had cut down the cherry tree that I used to climb up and sit in watching the world go by, and that was sad enough.

I prefer to remember the feeling I got when I saw that my little acorn had grown into a fully tree regardless of what else had gone on around it.