Kara Schoen, Spring 2010
Most people believe they’ve seen true beauty; in the eyes of lovers, in the sun sinking deep below the marble sky or in the birth of a long-awaited child, but true beauty that exists isn’t physical. This beauty rises from the ashes, after you’ve been trapped in a long and painful fire.
For three years I watched cancer slowly gnaw at the bones of a healthy body, like termites infesting a beautiful willow tree. I had seen nothing like this tree in all my life; its leaves were long, and banded together like braids, and when the wind would sweep through its hair I became envious of its elegance. Every day I would sit at its trunk, while it whispered sweet lullabies, and at night the crickets would laugh at the moon as I sat and listened to the harmony of the forest.
But one day as I walked past hoping to hear a song, its braids were falling out. One by one, they fell onto the grass which was now coiled brown. Its roots were carved down to the bone, and when I looked up at its body, I saw the termites eating away its bark. Eventually, the once beautiful and luscious tree became a tender weeping willow, which no longer hummed melodies.
As each day passed, the tree grew weaker and weaker, with more termites feasting on its hollow figure, until one night, after years of suffering, the tree collapsed at midnight, onto the dried-up soil. For weeks I didn’t return to the forest, in fear that everything I found sacred underneath the sugared moon would die, and I would be left in a world without beauty.
It took me two years to realize that beauty comes from within the darkness of death. Watching a beautiful piece of the world drift into the abyss strengthens your ability to see things as they really are; overflowing with heartache, but the truest love comes from such despair. This beauty comes from within our souls, and the light that shines through, even when the termites attack.