Loss to Gain
by Ashley Whittemore
Loss to Gain
Before we moved into our house,
when it was still gutted sheetrock
unfinished floors
severed pipes
and someone else’s memories
filling the expanse,
we noticed the neighbors cutting
down two enormous, beautiful trees.
Naturally, I wanted to protest.
It seemed amiss to cut
down history like that,
metal to wood
dead to live
life to death.
But how could I,
a not-yet-neighbor,
impose my unsolicited quest
to save the trees on the true
veterans of the neighborhood?
I remained silent at the sound
of chainsaws gnawing
grown men shouting
branches colliding with the same
earth to whom they bore shade
for all those years.
Time passed and soon
our own voices echoed in
the freshly painted hallways and
my children’s feet pattered away
on the newly refinished floors and
that first night home, we were
enamored with an unexpected
view of the whole city.
The scene visible from every
east-facing window of our home
the glittering lights
the statue saluting on the hillside
the busyness of city life
condensed to a distant painting
of organized chaos.
It was breathtaking.
Several days passed and as I
made coffee in the kitchen
admiring the sunrise over the cityscape,
my eyes landed on the tree stumps
still jutting up from the earth, defiant,
all that remained of their decades of
dedicated growth and resilience.
That is when it occurred to me.
This enchanting view,
the one that stops me
in my kitchen
in the stairwell
from my daughter’s window as I tuck her in at night,
it would not have been possible
had those trees remained.
Now, as I carry on my days
in this house turned home and
my gaze lands on that beautiful skyline
as it often does,
I see the stumps left behind
and I am reminded that sometimes
the loss of one beauty
leads to the unforeseen gain
of
another.
Ashley Whittemore is a writer, poet, and recovering people pleaser. She, her husband, and their three children lived as missionaries in the Amazon region of Brazil and Colombia for several years until unforeseen circumstances brought them back Stateside. Now, she writes about living in that tension of dreams deferred and hope sustained. In her free time, she can be found triaging the needs of her garden, houseplants, and chickens. Find her on Instragram @ash.whittemore. And you can also find her on Substack here: Proof of Living
https://ashleywhittemore.substack.com.