This is Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle.  Have you ever had someone or something in your life a really long time?  Like a mom or a dad or some old food? Who would have some old food? I don’t know.  But you understand my drift, or the drift from Digby…either one.

Well, yesterday, we had to part with an old friend.  A friend that had been with us for a part of our journey from that California place.  Our little big sequoia tree.

Sometimes, things happen to the ones we love.  Despite all of our efforts, sometimes, love is not enough when someone is sick, or growing older, or when emergencies happen.

Sometimes, things happen slowly, and maybe we don’t realize that there is something wrong with the ones we love.  Like our little tree.  And when we realized it?  We knew that it was probably too late to help it.  But we had to try.  And we tried.  For six months.  

You see, we had planned that one day, when we put down roots somewhere that our little big tree would put down roots too.  But time kept marching on.  The clock kept ticking.  And despite our efforts to take care of him, one day, the persons left him out in the rain in that Florida place.  And the rain was too much for our little tree.  He never seemed to recover after that, despite all of our worries and trying.  We still took him everywhere we went.  We still made sure he was safe when the Big Blue Treat Wagon was going down the road for miles and miles.  We continued to try and take care of him. We didn’t give up hope. 

But finally, yesterday, we had to realize that we were not helping him at all.  You see, his roots weren’t holding. We had to let him go.

It’s been a long time that we have been in what the persons call limbo.  No, not that kind of limbo.

And being in limbo isn’t always that bad when you get to keep moving, keep traveling and keep dreaming.  But eventually, you have to stop when other things force you to stop.  Like the tired Big Blue Treat Wagon RV.  The tired persons.  The little big tree.  Our sequoia.  Was our sequoia trying to tell us something?  Was it trying to tell us to put down roots or to keep going?  We don’t know, but we did make a decision.

If there was any chance for our little big tree to get better and to grow, we had to let it do what it was meant to do.  Put down roots in the ground.  And so.  Even though we knew we were going to miss the little big tree, we had to do what was best for him.  And so we planted him in a secret place.  And although we may never know if the little big tree recovered, in our hearts, we will imagine that he did.  We will imagine him flourishing and growing tall and years to come, people will wonder where he came from.  And his story will be his secret.  We will never forget him.

Sometimes, guilt can get to you when someone you love is ill.  Sometimes, there is something you could have seen.  Sometimes, there is not.  But with our little big tree, we made a mistake.  We learned from our mistake, and know that life sometimes is hard.  The ones we love come.  And go.  We come.  And go.  And nothing ever truly stays the same.  It is up to us to appreciate, take care of and love the ones who are put in our lives for a reason.  If we can help someone grow, we help them.  If we can take care of someone until we have to let them go, do that.  If we can own up to our mistakes and tell the ones we love we are sorry so that we can all grow…do it.

So little big tree?  It was our dream that you would be with us when we put down roots.  But now, we have put you in the ground.

Perhaps your roots will grow deeper and you will grow taller without us.  And that is ok.  That is more than ok.

Because you will forever grow in our hearts and our memories when we see the giant sequoias.  We will remember you when we think of that California place and the roots we thought we would make there.  But you never know where life is going to lead you.  It is up to each and every one of us to realize that others grow in different ways.  What we ultimately want, if we truly love someone, is for them to grow and be happy, even if that does not include us.

And so little big tree?  Grow our little friend! Grow tall!  Be a mystery to others for years to come!  Have them write stories about you and give you names.  Let them sit beneath your branches and dream of how you got there. And one day, maybe one day, your branches will cover over our mistake of leaving you out in the rain.  We know you forgive us.  Because just like the water eventually evaporates and makes way for growth, well, so does forgiveness.

-Sheriff Peanut Butter Brickle

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