Well I am not on the porch this week, I am in the hospital. Surgery did not go as planed…rehab is late getting started and I am having to go to a rehab center for at least 2 weeks. Getting old requires learning to adapt and the last year has been a time of adapting and I am running out of patience. Loss of mobility and the fact you are no longer in charge can bring home reality. Well…nuff said about that.

My hospital room was nice and it had a large window with this big tree sitting right in the middle of it and that is my pondering point this week. The best I can figure when they built this place they left some of the trees standing. It is an old tree and as I ponder over it which clearly has an appearance that shows the wear of time I’m on the fourth floor and that tree goes well above the window. It also sits close to the building which leads me to believe it was indeed one of the trees the construction people let stand, the building here is not that old, thus the the size of the tree, its proximity to it speaks to its age. Been around awhile…just like me. Some of the bigger branches have a tree bark fungus common in older trees. The tree does not stand straight and tall, a testament to the years gone by. It still produces a decent green foliage and there are occasional new smaller branches, which tells me this old tree is not done yet. Had a pretty bad storm last night  and from my bed I watched that tree twist and bend in the wind while being pelted by a hard rain. As I sat and watched I pondered just how much that old tree and me had in common. We have seen the old over run by new, we have seen and been through some storms, yet we still stand a bit stooped and tested but like that green foliage, we have hope which shows we aren’t done yet.

Kurt