The Olive Tree

The elders whispered of a beginning that had been beautiful. They called our grove a hidden paradise, where animals and humans roamed in harmony. A place where gentle streams of water flowed through lush green lands. There was no need and there was no want. Everyone and everything were satisfied.

But that was not the world I knew.

When I was just a seedling, the world around me was barren. The dirt was rough and dry, and the sun was excruciating. I was nothing more than an underdeveloped twig, unable to grow and flourish - unable to sustain myself. We were all too parched to do much more than wither away day by day.

The elders around me began to rot, their bodies drifted away and returned to the earth like dust. Leaving me alone. Almost as if they had never existed to begin with.

The land was desolate; it was not meant for us. But the elders never lost hope that it would once again be that paradise they dreamed of. I was never able to muster up that same hope.

The animals that passed by were cruel, not those harmonious beings that the elders had preached about. They trampled over top of me, pulled at my decaying leaves, and tore off twigs from my body. I ached in agony. Every breath of the wind sent a new screech into the air, ripping through me piece by piece.

In this torturous isolation I could feel myself begin to keel over. With every rising and setting of the sun, the world tilted a little more to the side. I knew my day of dust was approaching. Perhaps I longed for it. My roots were barely clinging to the dry dirt, ready to let go.

Then he appeared. A human man.

He was passing by when something caused him to stop and he turned to look at me. Me! I was not much more than a twig in the dirt and the sight of me stopped him in his tracks. I tried to shrivel up and go unseen. Still, he walked closer, his eyes never leaving me. In this deserted and decaying land he saw me.

The man reached out a hand and tried to prop me up. I was so frail that a branch broke and a groan shuddered through me. My roots pulled up in fear, ready to throw myself down to the ground in surrender. I had only ever known harm from the ones with legs.

“Be still.” His voice was softer than the breeze, but louder than the elders had ever been. “I want to help you.” His words grabbed hold of my very existence and refused to let me go.

He pulled out a jug of liquid from his pack and gently poured something cool and refreshing over me. Relief flooded through me for the first time as this man took away the thirst that had been suffocating me since I was a seedling.

I expected him to continue on his way. He was just a traveler passing by. He had his own life to attend to. It would make sense for him to leave. Instead, what he did shocked me. Not only did he linger and sit with me, but he came back every day.

He was gentle and patient as he tended to the soil around my base. He wrapped me up so I stood tall until I was strong enough to do it on my own. The man would trim my limbs and talk to me. He brought me water on the days that were dry, and a cover for the nights that were cold. All the while he spoke words of strength and encouragement. Oh, the stories he would tell! Of giants, and floods, and the battles that brought him here. As his voice drifted through the air, I could feel myself grow stronger and my roots grow deeper.

He called himself a gardener. A skill he learned from his father. I watched as he planted new plants and trees and flowers. All seedlings at first, just like I had once been. He tended to them just as carefully as he had with me. As the sun rose again, the world illuminated green around me, for as far I could see. His father taught him well.

The gardner would sit at my base and talk about life lessons he learned from his father, about the future, about the pain that he endured for the wellbeing of others. Under his care, I was full of life, no longer just hanging on. In my growth and strength, I began to provide shade for him to sit under when the sun blared down on us. These days were ones I cherished, just my gardener and me.

Soon, others became curious about my gardener. They observed cautiously from a distance, drawn in by the soothing words, but hesitant over the power that radiated within him.

Two young boys approached, nudging each other forward as my gardener smiled. The taller of the two stepped forward. “We’ve seen what you have done here in the olive grove.” The boy gazed up at me in amazement. “How did you do it? Pa said that they were beyond repair.”

My gardener laughed and patted the ground beside him. As the boys sat, he began to speak words that I would never forget. “My father has shown me that nothing is beyond salvation. With some hard work and a little faith we can revive what has been lost.”

“But how do you know that it's not too late?” The littlest boy asked.

Yes, I thought to myself, my branches swaying in the wind, how did you know that I was not too far gone? How did you know that I could be brought back from the days of dust?

“Ah, that is the best part.” He looked at each of the two boys, his smile never dwindling. Their eyes were wide as they leaned forward, hanging onto his every word. “It is never too late.” With his words, I budded with joy, fruit filling my branches.

The crowd soon followed. The circle of three became thirteen. Then fifty. Then there were hundreds. All to listen to my gardener. He spoke with wisdom and authority, his tender love and care stretching across each and every one of them. And although they were different from me, I could see how he revived each and every one of them with his words. He taught them how to live while he sat beneath my shade.

“A good tree bears good fruit,” he said to the crowd one day. He reached up and gently plucked an olive from my branch. “Just as I care for this tree, you all must care for each other.”

It dawned on me that these complex beings with tangling limbs, that once brought fear to my core, were not much different than myself. The confounding ways that they interacted with each other had become simplified as my gardener spoke. I saw all of these beings in a brand-new light. While many of them had never understood how to care for me, they also struggled with caring for each other. But as they heard from the gardener, their actions began to change. These humans were growing their own sort of fruits in the way they interacted with one another with patience, kindness, and humility. Joy flowed from me in abundance. Oh how my gardener has saved them!

One day he stood there at my trunk. “My dear friend,” his voice carried like a whisper in the wind. My existence leapt for joy again at his presence. But something was different. A sadness and pain radiated off of him. “We’ve had a good go, haven’t we?” He sat on the ground and leaned against my trunk. “We’ve come so far from where we began… Oh how this place has grown…I will miss it.”

I longed to speak, to ask what was wrong, to ask where he was going.

He patted the ground reassuringly, sensing the panic that prickled along my bark. “I am going away for a while. The world will change when I am gone. Things will get worse for a time. But one day, I will be back, and things will be better than you could ever imagine.”

As he was hauled away from me that day, I could feel the ache within me, different than any pain I had ever felt before. My gardener had not just brought me back to life but had made me thrive. I was not quite sure how to resume life without him there by my side. Fear consumed me. How would I survive on my own when he is the one that brought me to life?

Years stretched on and centuries passed, yet still I remained. His words echoed through my memory, keeping my roots strong and sturdy as the world around me changed. The grove disappeared almost overnight, the greenery was lost and replaced with stones. Humans began to put up buildings, roads, and gates. The stillness and quietness of the world long forgotten. Yet still I remained.

Humans frequented the area often, but never to see me. They were not the same as what I had once known. Not the cruel ones from my desert days, nor the ones that moved with the grace of my good gardener's words. These people were not like trees, but I could see the decay within them. They trampled around with metal contraptions in their hands and marveled at the buildings and stone.

Oh, if only they had known my gardener. If they could just hear his voice and stories, maybe it would bring them back to life. If they could see him the way that I knew him, maybe the light would return to their eyes.

If only they could remember like me.

The land eventually began to dry up again, not in the way it had once been but in a way that was consumed with stone, concrete, and tar. Smoke and pollution filled the air making it hard to breathe. I could feel the world begin to shift underneath my roots again, and fog filled my vision. The humans tried to preserve me, but they didn’t know the secrets that my gardener had known. All their attempts left me feeling weak and numb until I was too hideous for them to look at.

As I finally settled into dust in the ground, I was expecting quiet and darkness. Instead, I found my roots regrown and replanted into soil that felt like home. I was standing tall in a land that was both familiar and strange to me. A gentle breeze brought me the whispers of my elders, of my family.

The sight before me was more stunning than I could have ever dreamed. Wilder than I could have ever imagined. There were colours all around me, painting the world with wonder. A slow trickling of a turquoise stream ran by, tickling at my roots. And over yonder, a small lamb leapt up on a moss-covered rock while a golden lion yawned up at it. The lamb let out a bleat before dancing towards me and laying underneath my shade, curled up against my trunk.

This was everything the elders had said and so much more.

I was no longer alone or lost in isolation. I was surrounded by beauty, by my elders, and by the grove I had always called home. There was only one thing that would make it complete.

A hand, warm and familiar, rested upon my bark. “Hello my dear friend.” And there he was, just as he had promised.

Everything was perfect and whole, just as it was always meant to be. Home in paradise - the good gardener and his olive tree.