Family Trees

This weekend, I traveled home to a place where the distance to arrive was measured not in miles but in memories. While my birth certificate does not say I was born in Appalachia, the welcoming embrace of the Great Smoky Mountains takes me back to a past not forgotten. In these mountains, I lived and lost; my family grew together and apart, and we are drawn back compelled by forces of love and nature to revisit this land and each other.

The sun peaks through the ancient forest’s lace work and shines down on an abundance of green leaves, moss and lichen. Summer rains have fed the myriad creeks and rivers until they violently churn against themselves spraying the river ferns and slamming white caps into boulders with a rising crescendo of sound and energy. I hear the soft breeze rustling through the leaves in the canopy while birds call to each other in harmony. A rock falls in the distance crashing against the banks before splashing into the river. The music of the woods is nature’s symphony.

My father, who has joined me for this latest trip, places his guiding arm around me for the photographer’s picture. I feel the comfort of the mountains as strong and sure as his hand. The click of the camera has captured a man and woman, a father and daughter, a daddy and little girl. We have changed with the mountains over the years. Time has worn its path down trails and streams and etched lines down our faces. But for an instant, we are the same as yesterday and today, and hold firm against tomorrow. Mountain and family, as connected as leaves on a tree, remain one.