Family Trees Shed Leaves

I have a good friend whose parents died when he was 6. It is easy for people to see the tragedy in this. Yet I watch he and his two siblings interact, as if they were best friends as well as family, and there is new perspective. At first I covet, wishing that my family had the same relationship and interaction. Yet I quickly acknowledge that unhappiness comes from not accepting what is, so I let that desire go and look at today, and what is. The leaves from yellow to red, piling up outside my door.
My family tree, I think is deciduous. Though it may live in harsher regions, causing leaves to shed, the tree turning in on its self to conserve life, this is only necessary so that the past scars of severed limbs can lead to greater growth in spring. If this did not happen, the tree would not last the winter, trying to care for foliage with energy it does not have. We do not mourn the loss of a leaf in fall, we see its beauty, and know it is only temporary. Yet a connection lost within family, can seem devastating.
I like to think of my family tree more akin to a Pando, that giant grove of aspens, where one is unsure to label it a single tree with one massive root, or many trees interconnected. My family does not come from one trunk. It has spread beyond the blood, and where one trunk may have separated from the rest to begin its own path, another has connected its roots. Or, perhaps the roots themselves have suckered a new branch into existence. There is no loss here. The Pando has existed for thousands of years, in continual cycles of death and rebirth. If one member lets go in the fall, there is new growth in spring.
Have you ever sat outside and listened to the sound of quaking aspen in the breeze? They almost trace the silence. Their color, in its absence, mimic the sun.

In the wake of winter, let the leaves go. Come to center, root down. Nourish within, only then, will you have energy, when the spring comes, to grow.

Namaste,

Reina