The boy loses his leaves but the tree is still standing

He was standing in the park, barefoot, trying to find answers before he truly understood the questions.  Just a boy, four months and a million miles away from everything he knows.  The sky was a tattered blue pillow with the stuffing leaking out.  There was a breeze growling around every corner. Beside him, a narrow tree with all of its leaves stolen, shivered in the afternoon air.

It wasn’t much of tree.  Big enough to stand up to that nasty wind, but it took all of its might.  One or two dead leaves were trapped in the branches like flies in a spider’s web.  They tussled there, trying to break free, but those stubborn twigs refused to let go.

The boy started to notice little things about the tree.  He imagined the morning, mid-autumn, when the tree first noticed its leaves being plucked by the wind.  Tufts of leaves, pulled off like feathers from a live, squawking chicken.  Up until that point, those leaves were all the tree knew.  It held on to them with everything it had, but the snarling wind continued to rip them away.

He compared the tree to himself.  He was away from home for the first time, separated from his family, his friends, his home.  Those were his leaves, his security. The boy looked over at that tree and for a second, the wind stopped.  The tree stopped shivering and stood there casting a skeleton of a shadow.

It was February, the coldest month the tree would face and it was still standing, naked but strong.  He learned from the tree that day.  First the wind takes your leaves.  It takes them and the world turns cold.  It’s a shock, the cold aloneness drives into your bones.  But then you adapt.  You realize that you’re just as strong, maybe stronger, without your leaves.  You don’t need as much.  You fend for yourself and learn to lean with the wind rather than take it head on.  After a while, something happens, maybe your skin gets thicker, you’re able to handle the cold.  Without all those leaves, you can really appreciate the sun.

Then, when you think you’ve learned all there is to learn, the snow comes and piles on your shoulders.  It’s heavy and hostile, nothing like the leaves you were accustomed to.  But you manage to stay standing, in the cold, in the wind, in the snow.  You sit in the afternoon sun with your shoes off, your teeth chatter from time to time, but you know that cold weight will eventually melt away.

The boy knew that if the tree survived the winter, it would be stronger for it.  He hoped being away from home would have the same effect on his bones.  In the spring, when the leaves come back, maybe they’ll feel more like armor.