“Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
After my mother died, a dear friend gave me a pendant necklace engraved with a tree. No card, just a pale yellow sticky note with the above quote, “Friendship is like a sheltering tree.” I rarely see this friend face-to-face as we have busy and out-of-sync lives, but when I’m feeling lonely, I wear the necklace. A sheltering tree then, a reminder now.
You may live in a forest of sheltering friends. Or, or have just one lone tree — a good friend who shelters you from the storm. Or, you may be standing in the windswept prairie, looking for shelter and finding none. Circumstances vary. Needs vary. But, the glaring sun and the rattling wind invariably strike us all and force us to find shelter.
Who can be yours today?