The Old Oak

The Oak

Laying on my back in the cool shade. I try to quite my mind, easing my breath,
and trying to melt myself into nature. This place is my church, this is my
therapy room, this is were I come to fix “ME” I have known all my life that to
be yourself, your True self, Well you have to be responsible for what happens
to you. I don’t think this is the easiest way to live a life, but it does make
you pay attention to the kind of person you grow to be.

So I lay here with the sounds of the forest coming back to life after my
passage to this spot under the old Oak. The birds and the squirrels don’t take
long getting back to their business of the day because they have seen this man
many times come to this tree, this spot. The birds and animals know that he has
just come to sit under that tree and look at it and all of them for a little
while.

As I lay here on my back just looking up through the leaves to the blue sky
that peeks thru with the breeze, a calm comes to me. I can feel the tension
just release its hold on my bones and mind. I stay still for what seems to be
hours until my body is at ease and my mind clear.

I don’t ever really know how long I stay looking thru the green of this tree,
but I guess my mind knows just the right amount of time before I find myself
sitting up with my eyes flowing from the leaves to the branch, then to the
limbs till finally I focus on the massive trunk.

My heart always skips a beat because I know from the hundreds of times I’ve
come here to the same spot what soon will be before my eyes. I find myself not
breathing till I see the well-aged letters carved into the tree with a heart
around it.

My mind flashes back to when I was Eight years old walking with my Grandfather
in these woods and the day we ate lunch under that Old Oak. After we ate he
took out his pocketknife and walked up to the tree and put his hand on it. He
just stood there for a long while. I walked up to him and asked what he was
doing. He didn’t say anything for a short while then he turned to me and told
me that he was thinking about carving Grand moms and his name in this tree.

“Well,” I said. Are you gonna do it?“

He smiled and looked down at me and said. “ Well I don’t know yet the tree and
I haven’t come to a decision.”

I looked at him and said “ You are asking the tree?”

Well I must have had a strange look on my face because he smiled and said :
“Boy I know you might think this is strange but YES I guess in a way I am
talking to this tree and asking the old timer if it would be ok from me to mark
it with your grandma’s and my name.”

Well being eight I asked an eight year old question. “ YOU CAN TALK TO TREES
?”

Grand-pop Closed his pocketknife and walked over and set down, patted the
ground beside him and told me to come have a seat. After a minute or two he
turns to me and tells me to pay attention.

Believe me, when he tells ya to pay attention he means it. So I sat knowing not
to ask him what he wanted or why we were sitting here. I knew when he was ready
he would let me know what I was going to pay attention to.

He says: “ Boy. Every thing I know about life comes from what I feel and how I
decide to do things that come up everyday. Now I can just tell you that I was
talking to that tree over there but I think you are old enough to hear a old
mans way of thinking about things.”

So he reaches over to me and pats me on the chest, looking me straight in the
eye and he tells me:

“your heart is in there boy, that’s the thing you have to live with. It will
tell ya when you’ve done well, and it will keep ya up at night when ya could
have done better. If you don’t think things through, it will let ya know. Now
let me tell you this too. You will meet a ton of people that don’t seem to mind
what their heart is saying, or maybe they can’t hear it. Shoot I think I’ve
met some people who walk around without any heart at all. These people, Boy,
you need to be able to see and keep a close eye on cause those folks don’t seem
to mind putting themselves first and the rest of us out of sight.”

He pats me on the chest again and asks me if understood what he was telling
me. Well I thought about it for a bit then looked at him and shook my head,
yes.

Well he smiled and said good but then he also told me to think about it and he
stood up and walked to the tree and again he placed he hand on the ancient
bark.

Well I sat there watching him as he took out his knife and found the spot and
began to carve. It took him a long while before he was done and came back to
sit with me and look at the perfect heart with his and grandma’s name in it.

“ So the tree said it was ok to put your names on it right Granddad?”

He kept looking at it and said “Yep.”

I put my hand on that tree and just thought about what I wanted to do. I
guess I kind of just waited to see if I got any bad feelings about carving into
the old oak. Well see that tree there was old and had been through a lot. It
was tough, and over the years its skin has grown thick so I knew my carving
wouldn’t hurt it, but Boy ya still have to kind of take time to think about it
to make sure your doing the right thing. Remember Always think before ya do. It
will make livin with your heart a lot easier.

Well I jumped up and ran to the tree and reached both arms as far as I could
until my face was right up against the trunk, And I stayed that way for a while
just thinking and listening.

“Well” I heard from behind me. I looked back at grand pop and he has his knife
held out to me and he said. “Are ya going to need this or not?” I smiled at him
and ran over and said that I would and ran back to the tree.
I sit here now just looking at his name with that day running thru my mind. And
I smile as I look down 3 feet below their names at mine carved deep.

As I look at all the others in my family that have come to this spot out in the
forest to place there names on this old Oak I look over all of them I think
about each one for a bit, I think about what my grandfather told me that day
and how hard it was for me at age twelve to lose him.

I was devastated he always took time to talk to me and he never treated me like
a kid. And I guess I tried not to act like a kid around him because I could tell
that he was watching me, or rather watching my heart to see I had paid attention
to him that day.

So I come to this Old Oak and sit. It’s my place to come to think and put all
the things that have happen to me in place.

I am still learning from that talk I had with my Grandfather 38 years ago. I
can see him sitting over there now. I still put my hand on that Old Oak to
this day all the while thanking God for this Old Tree and for this place to
come and spend a while just unloading all the bad thoughts and feelings and
replacing them with the stuff that is important to me.

As I’m writing this I think I have made my mind up. I have been thinking about
this the last few times I have driven 30 minutes and walked 4 miles back to
that Old tree deep in the forest. I think It’s time that I loaded up two Red
head girls I know and take them back to sit under that Old tree. And tell them
this story about an eight year Old boy.
As you might have guessed that boy is me. And that Old Oak really lives back
there with the names of almost everyone in my family carved into it.

When I was 17 and my father got transferred to another location in the state.
Well I stayed behind and at 45 years old I’m still here in the same area. So no
one I know has ever gone back to that tree. I think I would have to remind them
that it’s even there holding all their names.
I haven’t told a soul about my place and this tree until I sit down and tell my
girls about the walk in the woods we are going to take real soon.



I need to thank a friend for sending me a copy of this he had. And telling me to place it in here. Thanks Tor. For all your help.