If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you can hear her humming as the melody peeks out from behind the steady percussion of her garden hoe. It is the same melody she hummed this morning as she left her sleeping family in the dim hut; it is the same melody she sang as a lullaby to her grandchildren when she nestled them under their blankets last night. Her daughter would join her in the garden soon, but for now she would be tending the fire and making breakfast before taking the laundry to the river. Thus, in the clear morning sun, she hummed to herself as she enjoyed the solitude of her travail.
Had you asked her, you would not have learned much. She spoke only a few local languages; thus she would not have been able to tell you in which African country she lived. But like her kin, she displayed her native beauty. Her maternal frame was not heavy, but toughened from long days and years of labor. Her strength revealed itself in her proud neck as she balanced enormous bundles on her head, and in her swaying hips when she held them between her hunched shoulder blades. Her stamina and power rivaled that of many men, yet she displayed it in a gentle grace that could only be described with words that define a woman: full of feeling, lovely, delicate, nurturing, mysterious, quiet, wise. Her Maker had sculpted her beauty masterfully; it was a simple beauty, practical but exquisite and matchless.
She leaned on her hoe, not feeling her years but rather the sun's warm touch on her perspiring brow. She smiled into the gentle breeze that cooled her, then turned, as if watching to see where it went.
If her eyes could have followed that invisible stream of air, they would have seen it curl and dance across the northern part of the continent, through jungle and over desert, teasing the waves of the Mediterranean before sightseeing among the ruins of Ancient Greece and Rome, and trying to lose itself in the deep woods of Europe. It tickled pine needles and deciduous leaves alike, making the trees and flowers ripple with laughter. As the tallest trees swayed like a choir high above the carpeted turf, there stood one tree unlike the others. Tucked into the shadows of the magnificent conifers, it stood humbly, unnoticed by any passerby who found his way so far into the wood. Even an expert would have struggled to identify this specimen. Gorgeous, with softly colored jewels for buds that never blossomed into arrogant flowers, it seemed somehow very simple and appropriate to its environs. Nothing proclaimed its richness, yet its leaves were inviting and branches healthy. Its roots had carefully laced themselves into the soil, spreading like a skirt in circular pattern beneath the garden of rocks and moss. Bees and other winged creatures hummed around it, echoing an almost African melody. What gentle grace it exuded, not caring if any came to marvel at it!
The swirling zephyr suddenly upset the sailing clouds, driving them into a churning mass. The treetops whipped in agony, feeling sharp pain in the air. It could be traced back to that garden, where the grandmother had just felt inside her a stab of tragedy, confirmed all to soon by a young boy who ran to summon her back to her mourning family. As she raced across uneven ground, the hoe forgotten, she recalled the many other unexpected storms of life she had weathered. Her hum turned to a wail as she arrived home, joining in the grief of her loved ones.
In the forest, the storm wailed in full force now. The winding winds had become straight-blasting gales, streaming mercilessly toward the helpless trees, rooted in panic. The tall trees with stout girths bent until they snapped, sheared as though a meteor had crashed through them. Logs tumbled from above like hailstones, ripping into the undergrowth and sending squealing creatures to hurriedly find better cover. A few moments of such wind devastated the mighty forest!
Yet amid the falling splinters and foliage, the roots of a nameless tree clung to her earth. Her supple trunk stretched in the wind; half her leaves blew free, several of her branches torn off. She writhed in pain as only a tree can do, dizzy amid the horrendous confusion. Her brethren, slaughtered by the storm, no longer seemed so mighty, so haughty.
Suddenly it became still; the storm had passed. Amid the wrecked stood a tough little tree, beaten and weathered, but no less alive; no less beautiful. The weeks passed, the tree flourished. On another continent, a woman returned to her garden, to her work. She, too, lived vibrantly, bending in the storms of life and often crying as the wind tore at her and those she loved, bending in the garden or under a heavy load when there was work to be done, but not breaking. The tear stains would dry and crinkle into laugh lines. When the sun rose again, she would stand tall, scarred perhaps, scared sometimes, but welcoming with a smile the new day and the joy that comes with the morning.
And in the stillness of the forest, a wanderer pausing beneath a lovely little tree in a sunlit clearing faintly heard a woman humming . . . .
