Phenomenon

I love the movie “Phenomenon” with John Travolta (George) and Kyra Sedgwick (Lacy) because it shows a great love...and how it doesn’t matter how long you’ve known someone...love is as strong as you make it.

Towards the end of the movie, George is dying (sorry...spoiler alert, if you haven’t seen it) and Lacy is wondering how in the world she is going to live without him.

He asks her how she would comfort her children when they were babies.  And she starts rocking back and forth, back and forth, with her hand over her heart, beating time.

He finally makes her open her eyes and points to the tops of the trees, which are moving back and forth at the same time.  Just rocking.  Swaying.

George explains to her that that’s how she can comfort herself.  Rock and sway...slowly.  Keep time.  And she will be comforted.  He will be there.

I think about that part of that movie all of the time.  When the sun has almost set and the sky is light blue, I’ll sit on my swing on my back porch. That time of day...there is barely sunlight.  I watch the silhouettes of the trees.  They’re so strong at the bottom, nothing moves.  But at the top, the newer part...they seem weak.  And they just sway. 

It’s almost hypnotic.

Last week a storm blew in.  My girls woke me up (my son will sleep through anything).  It hailed, it rained, and it sounded like the roof was going to come off of my house.  I ran downstairs to see if all of the windows were shut and wondered if I should take us all to the basement.  I watched the huge tree in my backyard bend in the wind.  Bend almost in half.  I felt sure that the entire thing was going to snap.

But...the next morning, it was there.

Calm.

Steady.

As if nothing had ever happened.

It had lost a few leaves.  Some minor branches.  One major limb...but nothing that would kill it.  It would stay.  It has stayed...for longer than I will ever know.  Weathered storms.  Taken a beating.  But still standing.

Sound familiar?