the tree outside a bedroom window

In August of 2000, we loaded up the truck and Jeep and drove towards God’s country.  We were heading for Boone, NC, a peaceful setting in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  I rode in the Jeep for the drive up.  We talked about campus life and settling into the dorm and if he had everything he needed and how we loved the mountains and how it wasn’t that far from home and to what lay ahead...

Then there was less talk and more music.  My heart became flooded with memories.  Some made me happy and I smiled, some made me sad and I fought back the tears.  I reminisced...how this story began some 18 years before, how quickly time had passed, how this journey was unknown...

The campus was unbelievably spectacular.  I took a step back and tried to take it all in.  We unloaded all of his belongings and somehow moved them into his dorm.  My only child would be living here.  We were glad he was sharing the dorm with an old friend.  We helped put away a few things, but as for the rest, he would make that space his own, now this was his home for a while...

Our goodbyes had been said.  As the mountains disappeared behind us, I knew it was time to let go. I trusted that he would make good choices, that he would find his way.  The page had turned to a new chapter.  His journey would take a new path, one guided by God, one that he would make his own...

 

On our way home, we stopped at a local garden center and bought a Crepe Myrtle tree.  It’s one of our favorite trees, from the tender green leaves of spring, to the tiny delicate flowers of summer, to the brilliant multi-colored leaves of fall, to the beautiful bark of winter.  We planted the tree that day, and the cycle continues...

This tree is outside the bedroom window, the room of a young child’s journey, a journey which shaped the child into a young man... 

Sometimes his tree will catch my eye, and I stop and remember and gaze and smile.  Since that day, he graduated college, he married the woman God intended, they have three beautiful children, they are following the path God had chosen...