The Family Tree

Every tree has a story.

And this one began long before it found its way into your hands.

Long before the gardens had fences, before the paths were laid and before anyone thought to plant geraniums in neat little rows, there stood a single ancient oak.

No one knew exactly how old it was.

Its trunk was broad enough to hide behind, its roots had pushed deep into the earth for generations, and every autumn its crown turned slowly from green to bronze, russet and gold.

The oak had watched children grow old, houses rise beyond the hedges, winters come hard and summers linger too long.

Birds nested in its branches.

Squirrels argued over its acorns.

Moss crept into the folds of its bark.

And every year, as autumn arrived, the old oak did what oaks have always done.

It let go.

Most of its acorns fell close by.

But one particular autumn, six acorns travelled farther than the others.

Those six acorns grew.

Not together.

Not in the same soil.

Not with the same weather, neighbours, troubles or adventures.

And over the years, each became the beginning of a very different branch of the old oak's family.

Six families.

Six histories.

Six ways of growing.

But every one of them still carried something of that first ancient tree.