From Little Things

It began like all things; small. Insignificant. A tiny seed in the enormity of the
world.
As an acorn, it fell from its great mother to the ground. It lay there in dirt,
amongst the leaves that had also fallen from above. Wind swept over it, stirring
the settlement of organic matter as it blew past, on its way to other lands.
A squirrel, searching for food to add to its winter store, found the small acorn on
the forest floor. Chattering to itself in happiness, the squirrel picked up the acorn
with its teeth and began scurrying home.
It came to a stream that bubbled and gurgled as it ran. There the squirrel paused
beside the water, setting down the little acorn again as it bent for a drink. Free,
the acorn rolled down the bank towards to river, away from the tree climbing
rodent as gravity pulled it down the slope. With a small plop it landed in the
forest stream and was quickly swept away.
The stream was full of life as it flowed down towards its mouth. Fish, much bigger
than the tiny acorn, swam on all sides, scales glittering as they caught the sun. A
couple swam closer to the acorn to investigate the strange thing that had fallen
into their watery home. But none lingered long, and the acorn was swept further
and further downstream.
A young girl, out with her father, mother and brother, was splashing in the
shallows when the small acorn came floating by. She caught it deftly, lifting it up
out of the water.
Look! she cried to her parents resting on the bank. Look what I found! Proudly
she opened her hand to show her prize.
Inside lay the acorn, that little acorn.
Ha! said her brother scornfully. What are you going to do with that?!
The girl stuck her tongue out at him and didn't reply. But inside she thought, I'll
plant it, and it will grow tall and strong. It'll be much bigger than him.
So she put the acorn in her pocket to keep it safe, and she carried it away from
the stream and the sparkling fish. She carried tit to her home.
There she dug a small hole, just big enough for her tiny acorn, and buried it with
soil.
The acorn lay in the dark with all the creature of the earth. Each day water would
trickle down through the dirt until at last, the small acorn grew.
It sprouted little roots, and a green shoot rose through the soil towards the sun.
It grew and grew, and finally it broke through the surface and saw the sunlight
again. The wind blew gently around it. By now it was no longer an acorn; it was a
sapling, ready to grow until it bore acorns of its own.

The young girl fed it water every day, and gave it shelter from the cold bite of
winter when the first frosts came creeping through the garden. She cared for the
small sapling so it would not wither and die, for it was not yet strong.
But it would be.
Years went by, and as the sapling thrived and became a young tree, so the girl
also aged and matured. She no longer needed to give the tree water, but would
instead sit and read under its shade.
And still the tree grew.
Its trunk grew thicker as the years passed, rings of barking marking its age. More
branches sprouted from the trunk, so that during summer it would cast a large
shadow on the ground beneath. As the trunk grew taller, and its branches
longer, the young girl became a woman, married, and had children of her own.
They would play in and around the tree, shrieking with laughter as they ran in its
shade, or climbing its strong branches. It was their playground, hide-out, and
they loved it.
For many years the great oak stood firm, strong. The wind whistled through its
leaves, sometimes knocking down an acorn that might one day have its own
adventure. Years flew by, and the mother's children grew into adults and had
children of their own. The tree became a refuge for them, too.
Then came a summer where the weather turned foul. Storms blew in, and the
rain lashed against the oak. It branches bent from the wind, and many broke and
fell. The mother, now a grandmother, would watch anxiously as the weather
raged outside. A particularly strong storm swept through, and the tree was
struck.
The grandmother mourned, for she still remembered the little acorn from the
forest stream, but the tree it had become was now dead, and no longer safe for
her grandchildren. Regretfully, she ordered it to be cut down.
However, she couldn't bear for it to be used to feed the fire, and so she had a
rocking-chair made out of the wood. She placed in on the veranda, overlooking
the place where once the oak tree stood and was now only a stump.
Many a day was spent sitting there, reading as she used to under the shade of
her tree. Now, instead of reading alone, the grandmother would sit and read
stories aloud, surrounded by her grandchildren. Sometimes she would sit with
the youngest in her arms, rocking gently back and forth as the babe slept, gazing
at the old oak stump and remembering.
The grandmother now felt the years as they passed, felt time slowly gaining on
her. Her husband died and was buried in the earth, but still she would sit on the
rocking-chair, sometimes now dozing as her aging body grew even older.
Her children visited with their children more and more. Many were now too old
for stories around her chair, and preferred to sit inside than out in the hot air. The
grandmother waved away their offers to move her rocking-chair into the
coolness of the house, and stayed on the porch, with her view if the yard and
tree stump.

Her youngest granddaughter, a child barely six, came to her as she sat. Her hand
was tightly closed around something.
Grandmamma? she asked. Can we plant it?
She opened her hand, and inside rested a small acorn.
Such a tiny thing, against the vastness of the world.
The grandmother smiled and clasped her old hand over her granddaughter's.
Sit down, dear, she said. Let me tell you a story.