The Parable of the Broken Tree

There are four trees in my front yard. Two I planted myself.

About four years ago, the week my oldest daughter was born, we only had the two small trees the front yard came with. It stormed while my wife and our newborn were still in the hospital, and the wind snapped one of the trees in half. All that was left was a narrow, forked stump.

I was out the next day to break down the fallen half. My neighbor walked over. He said he had a chain at his place he could hook to the stump. Using his truck, he could pull it out of the ground for me. (This is what you do with tree stumps, I think.)

I told him "Nah."
"You think it will grow again?" he asked.

Now I know for a fact I know less about vegetation than this man. This man wears over-alls all the time and mows his yard twice a week and grows beautiful vines and bushes and flowers and ripe vegetables all over his landscape.
I said, "I don't know."

Four years later, that broken, leafless tree that once poked nastily out of the ground like a wooden snake's tongue is still in my yard. It is not the prettiest or the fullest of the four trees.
But it is the tallest.