The Golden Chain

It took me a while to figure it out.  My sister got it right away.  I can still hear her words echoing through my head.

“You didn’t kill it; you just transplanted it,” she said trying to comfort me when it became apparent my Golden Chain would never bloom again.

The Tree Lives!

“But I won’t have my beautiful Golden Chain, anymore,” I had responded. I felt too bad about my dead tree that had lost all signs of life to comprehend what she was actually saying. And in all honesty, I really didn’t believe my folks would even be around to ever enjoy it, when we planted that little start in their yard.

The Golden Chain in our front yard was so beautiful every spring that I wanted to share it with someone else. There were several starts that had sprouted at the base, so I decided to dig those out and “spread the ‘beauty’ around”. I think we dug 3 or 4 starts, but I believe the one that we transplanted to my mom’s yard was the only one to actually survive.

That was a few years ago. It wasn’t until just this year when I saw the joy in my mom’s face that I understood what my little sis was saying.

“Did you see the tree?” my mom asked me with excitement all over her face. “It is covered in blooms!”

I hadn’t even noticed, only rushing in to do what needed to be done when I had stopped at their home that day. It was as I looked out the window at the little tree which had seemed to grow to full size overnight that I "got it".  There was the offshoot of my Golden Chain in full bloom in my folks’ yard. “Wow”, I thought to myself. “I can’t believe how fast that thing has grown!  I thought it would take forever.” Though I was certainly hoping so, I really had no idea it would grow to the height it has and bloom out to the extent it has in just those few years.

Seeing how happy my mom was about it, made me understand I really hadn’t killed my favorite tree; I simply gave it to someone else. Seeing her joy was worth it all.

A golden chain of love lives here.