I wrote this free verse nearly two years ago following our first Covid Christmas. The feelings felt too raw to share at the time so didn’t. I waited. And then forgot. This Christmas while looking for something else, I stumbled upon the words again, like finding a box in an attic you forgot you had. That’s why my friend Callie Feyen and I created The Darling Files. It’s a way to unearth beautiful words from our attics, dust them off, and give them new life. That’s what we are doing this week. I hope you can find some little darlings of your own and join us. Please share with Callie and I because a community of saved words is a darling thing.
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She was a Christmas Tree.
Before she knew them, she grew in a field with other trees coming into being.
Her friends left one by one, some small, others after years of growing, their great figures surely headed to greatness.
She longed to go somewhere grand like her friends–city squares, concert halls, someplace big and important where she could be adored by many.
But she knew she had more growing to do, more breathing, more becoming.
So she waited.
A snowy morning in late November, they came for her, sooner than she expected.
Around her trunk they danced.
“This one! This one!” Their joy a song.
But behind their eyes she saw something else
longing, desperation, grief,
the kind that comes from carrying months of burdens on their shoulders.
When they got home, the stand they fit her legs into felt cold against her trunk, her arms drooped, weighed down by the long journey, uneasy in this unknown space.
It wasn’t the grand finale she always imagined.
And yet, as the sun behind her set and the room grew darker, she watched their eyes change.
What looked dark in the fields turned bright in the reflection of the light in which they wrapped her.
This made her stand taller.
Her purpose was still unknown but she could see they needed her,
and that seemed rather grand.
In her arms, they placed their memories.
She held them just tight enough to keep them safe but open enough to be seen,
a reminder that time passes quickly and slowly all at the same time.
They nourished her, too.
It was a small thing, really, just a bit of water every day. But water is not a little thing to a tree. It is a very mighty thing.
She heard them talk, remarking how they were better at the watering, more than years past,
as if this year they had finally learned how to care for one another.
To return her gratitude she stayed soft and strong and bright all season long.
She knew when it was time to go.
Her room once filled with noise and beautiful chaos slowly stripped down to order and quiet. This was when they boxed up their memories,
unplugged their lights, and carried her out with the trash.
It happened quicker than she thought, but this time, she wasn’t concerned.
Somehow she knew she had been enough.
And yet.
It was the little ones that saved her.
Asked their dad to share just a bit more of her.
And so he did.
Split her in two, part to become pieces scattered on the ground, ready to help new plants come into being.
The other part he gave to them.
They set her up where they play.
In her arms they added food for animals, an offering, another opportunity to nurture, half as tall as she once was but just as grand.
This was the thing with becoming.
