Oak Tree Lesson In Healing

A backyard black oak tree recently taught us about healing. Both of us have had surgeries during the past year, and an assortment of scratches and cuts over the decades. Recovery from surgeries seemed slow. We were impatient.

Discovery Yields An Idea

One day, when loading a pile of split cordwood into our wheelbarrow and wheeling it to the woodstove, a hunk of oak caught our attention. Weeks earlier, we’d missed something when we cut, split and stacked the wood from this venerable but storm- damaged tree.

The piece of wood was remarkably different from other chunks that were mostly triangular in cross section. This piece was flat and about the size and shape of a book.  One surface had normal looking bark while the other side showed marks of a saw that, years before, had been used to prune off a large branch. The tree had grown over (healed) its wound. But we wondered how long did it take?

Curiosity

Rich took out the sander and smoothed off an end. Counting the annual rings he learned how long the healing process took. Answer: About a dozen years for the tree to grow back over the cut…..the healing process. The tree patiently worked, year after year, to gradually expand living wood over the cut.

Nature Heals

We’re watching another tree heal. A young red maple in our front yard took the full force of a 140 mile an hour wind during an August 2020 derecho. The storm blew the tree’s top almost parallel to the ground. Fortunately, it didn’t break, but the force popped a section of bark off its trunk. Now, five growing seasons later it’s nearly healed over.  Patience.

Perspective on Healing

Those trees gave us a perspective on patience and healing. While hauling wood Rich scraped some skin off his wrist. Gradually new skin replaced the scab over a few weeks. That’s a lightning fast heal. Earlier in the year Marion had back surgery and Rich had cataract surgery. Both of us were eager to heal quickly, but our bodies mimicked our oak tree. Healing takes time. Patience and self-care are important elements of healing. Skin heals relatively quickly. Muscles take longer, and nerve healing is a pokey process – about an inch a month after an initial recovery period.

Impatience is likely a natural human reaction to healing, and being impatient slows down the healing process.  The tree taught us that health can be regained. It just may take a while.

Crafting Beauty

The piece of wood we found was too important to toss into the woodstove. Rather, we polished the inside and drilled two holes on the bark side, to hold candles.

Now, when we get impatient with the slow pace of our own healing, we light candles and remember the tree’s patience.

Healing Happens

We send our thoughts to anyone who’s recovering from surgery or a wound. Take heart. Healing may seem endless but the human body is as remarkable as a tree’s bark. Healing happens.