A ninety year-old woman recently refinanced her home six times before the bank took it away. She gave all the money - a half million dollars - to her son, he never repaid her, and now she has nothing. It reminded me of something I first read years ago, Shel Silverstein's classic children's book The Giving Tree.
The book takes three minutes to read, and here is the story: a tree gives everything to a boy that she loves; her apples, her branches, even her trunk. It makes her happy each time she's able to give something more to the boy, though each time he leaves her without a thank you. In the end after the tree is cut down the boy sits on her stump to rest, and the tree is happy.
Reading this book was always unsettling, even when I was a child. It could be a warning about the environment, but I find it interesting to think about its views on human relationships. Wouldn't the boy be better served with some solid advice rather than her branches and trunk? Can you really be happy giving everything to someone who will take everything you have?
I don't want to be too cynical. Most parents give more to their children than they receive, and most are happy in the giving. Is this a story about parenthood? Or more generally is there something transcendent about giving with a full heart, so that it doesn't matter who receives the gift or what they do with it? Maybe. But there's something awfully sad about that tree, cut to a stump, with the boy on top.
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