There are two lovely cherry trees in my backyard. Once, they were nearly small enough to see over their leafy tops, and certainly small enough to fit inside our car when we brought them home from the nursery.
We planted them at just the right depth on either side of our pergola that supports our wooden swing, and we wondered how long it would take for them to grow past our heads and large enough to extend their sweetly flowered arms across the yard every spring.
At some point, I forgot to keep track of the trees. My boys were growing fast and moving faster, and I didn’t often have time to look up and appreciate the things above my eyes. Somehow one year turned into ten, and as I sit inside my studio that we built last winter, I smile at the gloriously strong and healthy branches that reach out past my windows and across the roof over my head, branches full of delicate petals that will soon dance down and cover the yard like fragrant pink snow.
These trees are not unlike the two boys that grew so fast as that one year turned into ten, and I marvel at the lovely things they too have become.