The Willow Tree

Photo by Meredith Shadrach

I became a Christian when I was 26 years old. Since I had virtually no church background and since I had spent my previous young adult years in varying states of dissolution, my conversion demanded a drastic change in lifestyle. I immediately became an initiate of a house church comprised of college students and dropouts just off the campus of the University of Missouri. The Bible was our guide as we attempted to recreate the lifestyle and fellowship of the early church as delineated in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts. Street evangelism, communal property, brother/sister relationships—we were a loony bunch of fanatics. The Word of God was literal and not to be parsed by the secular world. Yes, by God, we knew where we stood in the creationism/evolution debate.

Except that I didn’t, not really. I avoided all such debates. I believe my reticence was spurred by two separate observations: the first was that my fellow believers who most fervently espoused a strict interpretation of the Bible were the least pleasant Christians to be around. The second was that I personally found it easy to believe that I was descended from monkeys. The willow tree taught me that.

It grew in our backyard, its branches almost reaching to my upstairs bedroom window. From our backdoor or from the side door into our “recreation” room, a quick sprint and a simple kip up on my favorite branch would find me perched like a chimp, surveying the world below from my beloved tree. I knew every branch, every angle, every scar on that tree as well as I knew my own body. I could go from ground to highest possible vantage point in under ten seconds, and back down again considerably quicker. A willow tree has a kind of umbrella shape, and I could move around the circle of my umbrella with lightning speed. One day my mother was out in the backyard, and she watched me soar in my tree. “You look like a monkey,” she said. But she said it admiringly.

I took my nicks and scrapes and bruises from that tree. One time from the upper branches, I miscalculated how much weight a young limb could hold and I fell through all the way to the ground, clutching at branches to break my fall. There was another branch that grew parallel to the ground about eight feet high, a natural high bar. With no formal training, I became a pseudo-gymnast, doing hip circles and handstands and dismounts (couldn’t do a giant because of other branches). One time I slipped and landed flat on my back. I lay there trying to decide if I was dead or unconscious or paralyzed. Then I noticed how beautiful the sky was through her branches and leaves.

I can’t recall ever being in that tree with another person (with a brother and four sisters, it must have happened). I remember watching people. I could see into the kitchen window from a certain branch, and into my brother’s bedroom window from another. From my highest roost, I could see over the small hill in our backyard and onto the catholic school playground. I used to love watching kids play without them even knowing I could see.

When my own children were young, we went on a vacation back to Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. The house was there, different paint, smaller than I remembered, but the same. No willow tree in the backyard—not even a trace. They hadn’t even planted a replacement tree in its place. Damn evolutionists.

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