The Tree and the Vine

If Christopher had been a tree,

He would have been a skinny yet strong one.

With burls and knots twisting and turning,

But always looking for the light.

His branches always reaching out

to connect with other trees.

His roots striving to sow themselves

deeper into the earth.

But even trees can suffer.

Chris’s tree bore wounds—

some visible,

others buried deep in the bark.

Addiction, like a creeping vine,

wrapped itself around him—

tightening,

choking off the light,

convincing him he was alone.

For some time,

He mistook the vine for his friend,

a comfort.

But the vine sucked the life and light from him.

The vine, like the snake in the Garden of Eden,

had a plan all along:

You need me to thrive, you need me to survive, it told him.

And no matter how many times Chris tried to cut the vine,

It always grew back.

He had been doing so well for a time—

having shed the weight of the vine—

until that moment of weakness

when nostalgia, or something, kicked in.

And the vine returned,

choking off his life force,

cutting off Chris’s branches from the trunk,

and severing his roots from the grounding soil.

Now there is an empty space

where Chris, the tree, would be.

The vine doesn’t mind

and creeps onto the next tree it can climb.

Now the empty space is vast and wide.

And we, his family,

are what’s left of the roots—

twisted, fractured,

still clutching the earth

where he once grew.

We’ve lost Chris forever.

There’s no growing another Chris.

No replacing the shape he left behind.

But roots remember.

They carry the story of the tree—

its storms,

its seasons,

its joy,

its pain.

And maybe,

in time,

something will stir in that soil.

Not a tree like Chris—never that.

But maybe a wildflower,

or moss softening the scar,

or light—just light—filtering through

where his canopy once was.

Grief, too, is a form of growth.

Slow.

Unwanted.

But real.

And if love is anything like the roots of a tree,

then even in the absence,

He is still holding on.