The Singing Trees

by Boo Walker

It was so easy to have dreams, but to actually make them happen wasn’t always possible.

She didn’t know the baby would be a boy, but that was what she wanted. As much as men drove her mad, she couldn’t imagine putting a girl out there to fight the same battles she had; it was tough for a woman.

Annalisa turned and saw that her family looked at her with prideful, happy, and wet eyes. She drew in a long breath of air as they all went to her, surrounding her in a swarm of love.

Love could hold you under the water with its grip clutching your neck, your body convulsing into lifelessness, or it could sweep you up and away into an explosion of joy.

Why had she ever thought that being a mom was different from being a woman or that chasing a dream was something mothers couldn’t do?

She’d decided that nothing about life was easy, and sometimes it gets the best of us. No matter what, it wasn’t worth holding on to anger.

she saw very clearly that the family and the small town that had rescued her from her loss in Bangor were the exact essence of life.

The more people you loved, the more goodbyes you had to endure.

all the pain that came with loving was absolutely worth it. What was the point of living if you spent it in fear? What was the point of life without love?

This was exactly what love was, she thought, a feeling you have for people who didn’t always deserve it.

If she couldn’t teach her daughter about complete forgiveness and compassion, then what was she teaching her at all?

“What happened can’t . . . it can’t define the rest of our lives.