The Tree That Lets Go First

My boys,

When I was young, there was a tree my father and I would pass that always seemed to lose its leaves before the others.

I don't remember what kind of tree it was.

I wish I did.

Memory is strange that way.

It will keep the sound of your father's voice for decades and throw away the name of the tree he was standing beneath.

I remember one autumn when I noticed it.

The trees around it were still mostly full.

Some green.

Some yellow.

But this one had already dropped nearly everything.

Its branches stood exposed while the others were still dressed for the season.

I asked my father,

"Why is that tree already dead?"

He looked at it.

"It's not dead."

"It has no leaves."

"That doesn't mean it's dead."

I wasn't convinced.

To a boy, leaves seemed like fairly strong evidence.

My father walked over to the tree.

He picked up one of the fallen leaves and turned it over in his hand.

Then he looked up through the bare branches.

"It just finished first."

That was all he said.

My father had a way of doing that.

Giving you one sentence when you wanted five.

Sometimes I found it frustrating.

Now I find myself doing exactly the same thing to you.

We kept walking.

I forgot about the tree.

Winter came.

Then spring.

One day we passed it again.

There were small green buds along those branches.

The dead tree wasn't dead.

My father didn't point it out.

He didn't need to.

I saw it.

I remember looking at him.

He gave me that little look fathers give when they know their child has just discovered something they could have explained six months earlier.

He said nothing.

I think about that tree differently now.

Especially this time of year.

There is always one that seems to go first.

One tree releases its leaves while the others are still holding theirs.

For years, I would have called that loss.

Now I wonder if sometimes it is readiness.

We are very quick to judge someone's season by comparing it to everyone standing around them.

He left the job too soon.

She moved on too quickly.

They closed the business.

He stopped chasing something everyone else still wants.

She became quiet.

He simplified his life.

They let go.

From a distance, an empty branch can look like failure.

Especially when every neighboring tree is still full.

I have lived enough now to know that God does not move every life through its seasons on the same schedule.

There have been things I held because other people were still holding theirs.

Things I thought I should want because men around me wanted them.

Times I stayed with an idea after I already knew my season with it had finished.

I was looking sideways at the other trees.

That is a dangerous way to decide when to let go.

My father is older now than he was beneath that tree.

And I am the father walking beside the boys asking questions.

That part catches me sometimes.

The man I remember as fully grown was still becoming too.

He had worries I couldn't see.

Things he was releasing.

Things he was carrying.

Questions he probably brought quietly before God after I had gone to sleep.

As children, we imagine our fathers arrived before us fully formed.

Then we become fathers and discover there is no arrival.

There is only another season.

Another thing to learn.

Another thing to release.

Another spring we hope God lets us see.

I don't know whether my father remembers that afternoon.

Probably not.

To him it may have been an ordinary walk and an ordinary tree.

But I remember his sentence.

"It just finished first."

Maybe that is one of the quiet gifts fathers give their children.

You say something small.

You keep walking.

And thirty years later, your son finally hears it.

This morning I passed a tree already almost bare.

The trees beside it were blazing orange and gold.

For a moment, the bare one looked almost embarrassed standing among them.

Then I remembered.

It isn't behind.

It isn't ahead.

It isn't failing.

It is simply in its season.

I hope I can teach you that without teaching you to quit too easily.

Finish what deserves finishing.

Stay when staying is right.

Keep your word.

Endure difficult seasons.

But when God makes it clear that something has completed its work in your life, do not keep dead leaves tied to the branch because the tree beside you is still green.

Let your season be yours.

My father taught me that beneath a tree whose name I cannot remember.

I think he would appreciate that I remembered the important part.

I love you.

— Baba

Question:

What are you still holding because you are watching someone else's season instead of paying attention to your own?

Moral:

Lives do not change on identical schedules. Wisdom is learning the difference between quitting early and recognizing when something has completed its season, even if everyone around you is still holding on.

This story reflects real experiences and philosophies behind Backyard Brew. It is shared to preserve perspective, memory, and intention.

Author: R. Solace