A passion that can never be uprooted

by DRM

We have a tra­di­tion on our anniver­sary to com­mem­o­rate the occa­sion by each writ­ing an entry in a spe­cial jour­nal. Here is what T wrote. I share it because it moved me and because it offers an ele­gant metaphor for love.

Here we are on our fifth anniver­sary, where tra­di­tion tells us the sym­bol for the occa­sion is wood.

Wood doesn’t seem all that roman­tic. So, when I researched it fur­ther, I found that in mar­riage, wood rep­re­sents strength and a solid­i­fied rela­tion­ship. That made sense to me — I am bear­ing wit­ness to the strongest bond and most solid rela­tion­ship I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. And the beau­ti­ful part about this is that faced with life’s uncer­tainty, the rela­tion­ship, our love, our mar­riage grows stronger and more resilient. We laugh, we share, we talk, we hug, we kiss, we give, we sup­port, each and every day. We’re connected.

I wanted to find some­thing unique that cap­tured our love, on our fifth wed­ding anniver­sary, and for weeks searched for an ideal wood sculp­ture. Noth­ing. Then, star­ing out our bed­room win­dow, I saw the chest­nut tree in our back­yard. Strong. Endur­ing. Abun­dant. Grounded. And sud­denly it hit me: Wood.

Trees are the per­fect sym­bol for our incred­i­ble, pow­er­ful bond. Our love has grown so much since we opened our­selves up to it. Each day we tend our love, nur­ture it. Each day, the beauty of our love, just like the beauty of nature, aston­ishes and impresses me. Cap­ti­vates me. Makes me feel like I am part of some­thing that is big and won­der­ful, wise and ambitious.

So here we are. Five years later. Two soul­ful trees, entwined in each other’s life, grow­ing side by side, but not crowd­ing the other so as to stunt nor deform the other’s growth. Instead, I am grate­ful for your never-ending sup­port, com­pan­ion­ship, gen­er­ous spirit and all the many ways you con­tribute to this beau­ti­ful life we share. Thank you. I love you more than there are trees in the wired, more than there are leaves that grow in their branches, and with a pas­sion that can never be uprooted.

Happy fifth anniversary!