Broken

On Trees, Pain and Feeling Broken

When I was young we lived across the road from a pair of massive horse chestnut trees. They were ancient, with knobbled branches and trunks wide enough to encompass a car. I used to collect conkers there every autumn, peeling back the spiky shells to find the biggest and brownest seeds I could. What always struck me about these trees though, was an anomaly that I’ve never seen since. The older of the two, it must have been due to the deep ditch that held its trunk, had branches thick enough to be a tree of their own, and reached out and up from its hole. Here it was met by the second, the two wrapping their limbs tight, curling branch after branch, tying themselves together. By the time I saw them they were locked together, a single tree with two trunks, like friends, holding each other tall against the years.

When I was ten or so there was a storm, an awful storm, one of the worst we ever had. It blew like a hurricane and boiled with thunder and lightning. In that storm, trees fell, trees that had survived hundreds of years. Ancient oaks and firs, pines and ashes. Trees taller than houses and older than anyone could remember were torn from the earth. That storm hurt people I loved, it dropped a tree that crushed my cousin and shifted her life in a way no one could have expected. And it split that horse chestnut, a bolt of lightning tearing right through the older trunk. I remember looking at the crack, seeing the splintered wood as it hung, swaying in the aftermath, and thinking, there was some connection there, some twist of fate that was showing me something. The tree was split and broken but still, despite the odds, it held strong. I was worried about her, we all were, but I just kept thinking, if the tree could make it, so could she.

The idea was likely childish, and looking back now I see how ridiculous it seems, but at the time it made perfect sense. Sure, enough my cousin made it through, stronger than ever with a spirit that rivals most anyone else I know. She’s been to the Paralympics, played for the Irish wheelchair rugby team, and made a life for herself that anyone would be proud of. That was the first time I saw something in that tree.

Years later there was another storm. This time the older tree was torn from the earth, its roots ripped up to grasp at the open air. We were all sure it would die, that it couldn’t survive like that. We were wrong. The second tree, the younger of the two, kept it alive, feeding the winding branches and keeping the conkers falling. It never had strong growth, but it lived. Above you can see it, leaves still sprouting from twigs that touch the earth. Despite the odds, despite the reality of its fall, that ancient tree kept growing.

That was the second time I saw something in that tree, and it has stayed with me since. When I feel broken, when my mind tears at me with doubts or my body aches from some newfound medical nightmare, I think of that tree. I remember the way those branches twist and turn, how that knotted trunk stood tall even when toppled. I see those little leaves and tiny conkers, still pushing through when everything else says they should die. I remember that thick branch, thicker than most trunks, and how it held strong to the end. I remember that tree and I find the strength to keep going.

Life will often throw hard times at us. Things won’t fall out the way we plan, a tree will block our path and we’ll have to find another route, but its important to never confuse broken for dead. So long as there is still breath in our lungs and a hand to hold, we can do anything. Though the going may be tough and the recovery may be long, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, whatever that tunnel may be.

For the past couple of months, I have been struggling with back issues. Somehow, someway, I have slipped a disk right at the base of my spine and damaged the ligaments. This has made sitting down and bending in general, rather uncomfortable. Standing all day at work has left me more tired than ever before and by the end of the day, I am often shattered. This has made it all but impossible to write and led to me feeling like I can’t get back to it. Tonight though, for the first time in a long time I remembered that tree, and I realised that the only thing keeping me from writing was me. So, this is for the Broken out there, those who are struggling to keep going. You are not alone. Find that hand. It’s waiting for you to grab it.

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