My beautiful brother spent the weekend with us. How can I explain the deep bliss of family, the ease born of a lifelong of knowing and the gentle assurance of leaning into the love of a sibling. He moved away when I was eleven to live with our father in California and the tide of time took us in separate directions, now I am getting a chance to know the man he has grown into.And my boys are getting to know their uncle...and yet another wacky member of the evolving Lloyd family tree.
Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...
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