The tree of life

Silent witness
Duvernay, QC
May 2013

If life is messy, so, too, is its end. I've learned there's nothing linear, logical or predictable about any of it. Between navigating your own journey and managing the turbulence created - unintentionally or not - by others, it's a trip no one wants to be on, but we all end up there regardless.

So on a breezy afternoon in the cemetery where my father and mother-in-law are buried, I thought I might want to tote a camera along not because there's anything particularly gripping about shooting in a graveyard. But because this place has, for reasons we had never hoped for but knew were inevitable, become a permanent focus for our family. We don't come here often, but it's always there, in the back of our minds, reminding us of what we no longer have.

This tree was different than the others in the leafy stand that defined the border of this place. As you can see, it's led a hard life, and at some point I figure I'll return here and find a stump in its place. But for now, it stands, defiantly alive in a place that is not. In a place where the living come to somehow make sense of life after it ends.

Not that there's any sense to be had.

Your turn: what is this tree's story?

Related links:

• Endings, and possibly beginnings
• Bird on a stone
• Caption This 135
• At rest