the perspective of the redwoods

This past summer I was given a gift of something I have wanted for as long as I can remember.  I saw the great redwood trees in California.  And they were more astounding than I had ever imagined.

So massive and majestic in their stately silence that it was impossible to take in their size, age and beauty all at once.  I couldn’t get enough of them.  From grove to grove, I wanted to walk among them, look up into their branches that went for what seemed like miles into the sky, feel the thick protective bark, try to wrap my limited arms around the immense trunks and grieve at the sight of the fallen ones.  They rank with those moments in my life when I’ve experienced some reality that is truly larger than life itself. 

Walking among the groves reminded me that perspective makes all the difference.  Depending upon how I looked at them, my experience changed. . . . the dizzying height of the topmost branches, the texture of the bark that could even keep fire from killing the tree, the breadth of the trunk that went as far into the earth as it did up into the sky, the upended root system of those that had fallen with what must have seemed like an earthquake.  To truly experience such magnificence meant seeing from all these different perspectives. 

And so my heart asks . . . can I honor the gift of our son this way? 

Can I see his life from all its unique perspectives and take him in as one astounding moment of unfathomable love that is part of me? 

Can I walk among his smiles, his words, his struggles and his joys with simple, bottomless gratitude and feel the immense treasure that his life is to me? 

yes . . . oh, yes . . .