The Number Four Tree

That's what we've always called it, "The Number Four Tree," as if it held some sort of elevated position in our household. I don't think it does, really. It's just called that because we weren't very creative when we were youngsters and the tree is shaped like the number four when written on a piece of paper. It's a cute tree, kind of like the five-year-old God was practicing his numbers before deciding that trees should be large and majestic, instead of shaped like numbers themselves. He gave us paper for that.

It is a special tree, shaped so that it's unique to our family in this town. We've each claimed it as our own tree, after each one of us turned four, but I always like to think of it as a family tree. So much happened (and never happened) within its reach.

I hope it stays steadfast and untainted. I don't know what I would do if someone tainted it with their sadness, their death or their despair. Likely, I would want it to be torn down, no monument to commemorate a memory of a departed soul, no matter how dear to me the soul is. No memorial to one taken too young, perhaps by his or her own hand. No reminder of how, if something ever were to taint the memory of this tree, I would be alone in this world with no one to hold on to.

Not even the Number Four Tree to welcome me into its warm, leafy embrace.