Coping

"Someone pulled off all the leaves on the tulip tree," he said when he came in from watering the lawn.

We've been babying that tree, trying to get it to survive. I was already dealing with troubling news and didn't need to hear more.

"How do you know a worm or bird or something didn't eat them?"

"Because the leaves are on the ground next to the stem. Someone put rose petals in the circle."

"Why would someone do that?"

"I don't know."

Why?

That stick you see with the shadow-- the tulip tree.

Those leaves on the ground behind it-- the evidence of deliberate destruction.

Are the rose petals a sign of play or regret?

Sad, senseless things happen. 

Sometimes there is nothing we can do.

It's hard to forgive, to hope, and to be patient.