Of Hope And Trees...

They're cutting down Anne Frank's tree.

The one she looked at while in hiding in Holland. The one she looked at nearly every day she was there, imagining what it would be like to be outside, under it's spreading branches, walking free.

Of course there's a compelling reason. The tree, a one-hundred and fifty year old chestnut, is slowly dying, rotting from a fatal, incurable fungus. It is very large, and is potentially dangerous; it could fall on persons or property at anytime. So I can see why it has to come down, but it makes it none the less sad.

Anne believed as long as her tree lived, so would she. And in a metaphorical way, that has been true. Anne's words and thoughts continue to live, louder many say, than any other of those voices silenced by the Shoah. I must confess, when I first read her diary, that time in history was not on my mind so much as that she was a kid like me; wanting to play, to have fun, to dream; getting her period, fighting with her mother, putting pictures of movie stars above her bed. I sympathized with her greatly when the dentist moved in---who would want to share a room with some old man--gross! (I'm channeling my inner thirteen year old here). I would've spent much of that time up in that attic, drawing that tree, yearning to get away.

Anne's tree puts me in mind of some other "literary" trees that kept their characters going; Francie's tree from "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", or even the the little bit of "foliage" in O. Henry's "The Last Leaf", that kept a young girl from dying. But Anne's tree is real---Anne was real. For me, that makes the death of the tree just a little more heartbreaking.

Reports are that saplings have been taken from the original tree, and will be planted in it's place. Perhaps that is some comfort.