This story belongs to my friend Holly Hassett. It is a story about helping others, a parable about friendship.
After a particularly hard winter Holly and her husband, Rick, were clearing up the twigs and branches that had snapped off and fallen to the ground in their back yard. One of their birch trees had become so bent over in the last ice storm that its top almost touched the ground. Both of them are so fond of birch trees that Holly asked Rick if there was anything they could do to save the tree.
Rick had an idea. He said he would wrap a rope around the bent tree and tie it to the straight tree that was next to it and leave them together until the bent tree could remember being vertical. By the time the summer came, they could take the ropes off and although a little crooked the bent tree was now standing upright among the other birches.
Holly is a social worker and she tells this story to her staff who work with children at risk and people in recovery. This is what you do, she tells them. This is how you help. No one starts out dreaming of the day they can become an addict but sometime the storms of life bend you over. So your job is to be next to them until they can remember being vertical.
It strikes me that this is also a story about friendship. No one expects illness, financial difficulties or the basement to flood but “storms happen.” And when you are bent over by them it is your friends that will rope you to them with help and love and understanding until you can remember being vertical.
~Holly & Rick are straight birch tree to all who know them. The top picture is a photograph of two birch trees I pass regularly. It is part of a page for a round robin book passed between some incredible artist friends! You can see more of the book in the post below.
The bottom photo is a part of a "Little Love Quilt" I made for Holly & Rick.
Thank you all for being my straight birches!