April 26, 2023
In a recent speaking engagement I referred to the resilience of the human spirit and our ability to both withstand and overcome adversity. I used the example of what I call the “giraffe tree”.
On a wood lot property my wife and I used to own there was a very strangely shaped maple tree. It was tall, fully leaved, and magnificent. But it looked like a giraffe: straight for the first 20 feet, then the trunk branched out at almost 90 degrees like the neck before shooting upwards like the head of the iconic African animal. How did that happen I wondered?
Then it occurred to me. An older tree had...