The Dark Side of Trees

Last weekend, on a warm sunny day, a mother and her baby were having their picture taken under a green leafy tree in New York’s Central Park. A branch snapped off and fell; it killed the baby and seriously injured the mother. 

A few months ago, across the country in California, another tree branch snapped and hit the windshield of a woman merging into freeway traffic. She was killed instantly. Last year, while a friend’s family slept, a tree limb in their front yard toppled, crushed a car in their driveway and fell onto the roof, narrowly missing their own bedroom. 

On warm sunny days, leafy healthy trees don’t drop branches unless you’re filming ‘The Omen’. I’m using these tree examples as a metaphor for things that can’t be explained. We call them acts of God if they’re unexplainable, but bad. They’re called miracles if they’re unexplainable, but good. 


Either way, they’re random events. We can’t predict them or hope they won’t happen because we can’t even imagine that they could. Airplanes as missiles? Unimaginable until 9/11. Oil globules cascading onto hurricane lashed beaches in five states? Unthinkable until last week. 
We still sit under trees but they’re no longer just trees. As they bless us with shade on a hot sunny day, they also show us their kinetic unpredictability. Like people, trees contain the possibility of a dark side unleashed when we least expect it.