The Solitary Tree

Yesterday I happened to meet Mr. Ali Bushari of Medhayaf Travels and Tourism to train his staff on marketing language courses in the United Kingdom. When I entered his office I couldn’t help but notice that his office overlooked an old and abandoned graveyard. At first I made a joke and asked if he spotted any tombstones move or observed any zombies after sunset, but then, Ali got serious. He said to me what could have been the wisest thing I had heard all day. The view to him was reality. To him, that cemetery was a constant reminder that all that surrounded him was tangible and insignificant. “It all comes to an end” he said “That graveyard reminds me that no matter how successful I would like to believe myself to be, the earth is my ultimate end” he continued.

And while he said those words to me, I couldn’t help but notice a solitary tree that bloomed asymmetrically in one odd spot of the garveyard. There was nothing pretentious about that tree nor was there anything glamorous. But that tree promised life. It promised that life does not end, it just moves on. The thought reminded me a lot of Mitch Albom’s quote from ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’. In the book he says “Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.”

When you come to understand why we really mourn the loss of a loved one. It’s really selfish cause actually. If you knew that the soul moves on and you accepted that your loved one is in a better place, what concludes is that we do not cry for them, but rather for how their absence would influence our lives and how we can’t live without them.