We planted a very small tree in our front yard. I’ve puttered over it, and watered it special during the drought. I pondered what it might need. When it was first planted, it had four stems. More like a bush.

I agonized over trimming it, but finally cut it down to a single tunk.

It was a very hard choice. The first shoot I cut was obviously not going to be the primary trunk of the tree. I didn’t regret cutting that one.

That left three choices. Would the tree pick a favorite?

With all the care I was giving it, I thougt it would be growing faster. It seemed stunted. Maybe it was the drough. I finally cut one more.

There remained only two. I let that tree sit for more than a year. It was only as tall as me, a small skinny stick. When was this tree going to look like a tree?

I’d seen a lot of trees with two trunks. I thought maybe this tree could be one of those. But it wasn’t doing much.

We hung in limbo.

Time passed. The tree wasn’t growing. It seems perfectly content to remain as it was.

The time had come, as keeper of this tree, for me to make a decision.

A choice had to be made.

It was hard. The two shoots looked the same. How could I choose one over the other?

But this tree wasn’t fulfilling its destiny as a tree.

I made the cut. One side only.

Except it wasn’t even a side. It was the tree.

That’s when the miracle happened. The tree began to grow. It even grew over the tiny stump left from my cut.

That’ make all the difference. Now the tree is taller than house.