My poor mountain laurel. It got bit hard by the big freeze. I’d never seen it bare branched until now. But there it was, nothing to show for its years in the ground except brown wood. Unexpected. Sort of like seeing a parent or loved one laid low. My first reaction was to trim, but I resisted, figuring I’d let the tree work it all out. After all, it still had branches with leaves, so I figured there was life within.

Sure enough, patience paid off. The tree started putting out new growth. It’s now fairly covered with the bright green of youthful leaves and some of them are even turning the dark waxy green of age, which is what you expect from a mountain laurel. You can color me happy. I’d be willing to bet by the end of the summer it will approach something near normal.

Of course, there will still be deadwood within, and I may have to trim. But I think we can wait without harm or foul. The little tree can just be like the rest of us. We all have wounds, little insults to our bodies and souls, that heal with time, usually. Then the branches of new growth sprout up, experiences, loves, and the old wounds disappear, and people forget about them and we forget about them, or maybe just put them aside in a special place. Anyway, we keep going, and when a stranger sees us one day they have no idea of the hurt inside and it’s all good.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale