The tree story

So this was in 1982 or 83, and I was newly married, with two small children. Living a bit out of the way in central California. I had kicked heroin in ’81 but was still drinking heavy. My wife asked me to quit and told me to go to AA. … So I thought I would give it a try, anyway I did sober up, and then life got crazy.

My wife started a residency at the state hospital, and was on call 60 hours a week. I had these two babies. I was just barely holding things together, and then I took an AA sponsor that wanted me to do all this extra shit. My life started to crumble apart. Now this sponsor was an old junkie, he had done years of hard time, and was one of the wisest, gentlest old men you could ever meet.

One day, one of the kids had a cold, and I was in a panic. Running around trying to do my best as a dad, and beating myself up for not being perfect. My wife was working and would not return for 48 hours. I became pretty frantic.

Then this old pickup pulled up in the front yard, and my sponsor got out and said he hadn’t seen me for a day or two. I snapped at him, and he got back into the truck and left. Only to return about 30 minutes later. In the back of the truck was a shovel and a 4 foot pine tree. He said he would take care of the kids, but I needed to dig a hole 4 feet by 4 feet, and 4 feet deep. I got mad. But he insisted. So I dug the hole over in the side yard. The physical labor did wonders for my head. Calmed me down, and gave me something to focus on.

Then with the hole ready he came out with the kids, and we all planted the damn pine tree. It actually looked good. The kids were playing with the water hose, and happy. My sponsor had a grin on his face. I was no longer at my wits end, things were ok.

Then my sponsor got very serious. He said “I want you to forget all the other shit I told you to do. You now have only one job.” I felt relief and curiosity. He told me, “I want you to come out here every morning before the kids wake up, and water this tree.” “I want you to kneel down and look at it very closely every day.” “Notice everything about it”

He turned and looked me straight in the eye, and said. “The thing is, people grow only slightly faster than trees.” “Your going to be ok.”