Hello, my name is Cross, and I’d like to share a story with you. I don’t have much time left, so let’s get to it.

Cross may strike you as a strange name, and truthfully, it took many years for me to understand why that was bestowed upon me when I was a seed. The planter, as he put me into the ground, said, “Tiny seed, your name is Cross. One day you will understand.” He buried me, so that I would one day live more fully with new life.

I never forgot that planter, though it would be a long time before I met another.

Through the years that followed, I grew tall and wide. My rings were many, my branches strong, and my roots deep. As time passed, there were seasons when I was surrounded by friends. Oh what a time it was to rustle against one another during a nice gust of wind! We shared secrets and stories. How you may ask? Well, our roots became interconnected, and what met one friend at the edge of our forest pack spread quickly to the rest of us. It was a celebratory time, full of joy and companionship.

Time continued to wear on and those of us with deeper roots managed to survive many storms. We were anchored in a way that some of our other friends were not. As can happen, we lost a few of us, and it was so sad to feel the rotting of their roots, the silencing of their voices.

The forest thinned.

Storms were not the only thing we dealt with back then. There was fire, which I’m told is a necessary part of life. Many fires in fact. One of the few positives after those devastating events was the soil becoming richer.

No, the worst force we met wasn’t even a force at all. It was a form of a planter, though really quite the opposite. It was a chopper.

News of these choppers naturally reached us through our root system. Rumors could often spread faster than wildfire with how connected each of us were. Speed did not always help understanding. There was very little knowledge among us of what a chopper was, other than the presence of a chopper meant one thing: death.

Slowly, but surely, more arrived, and with each additional chopper came a loss of another of my friends, until, one day, I stood alone in a massive field. I think one of the choppers was tired and wanted to rest in my shade. Those days were lonely but a gift, because I had new purpose. I stood as a place of rest.

Though the shady rest days extended my tree life by a ring, they did eventually come to an end. I knew it when I saw a chopper come striding purposefully toward me with something in his hands. It glinted in the sunlight and sent a tremor from my topmost leaves to my deepest roots.

My time had come.

Pain such as I had never known laced through me. Everything felt wrong. I was not meant to be apart from my roots, yet here this chopper insisted, with each swing of his axe, that separating from them was exactly where we were going.

When the deed was done, as if that misery had not been enough, the chopper called his friends, and they proceeded to strip me of my bark. It was humiliating. I felt raw. My branches were severed until I was nothing more than one, long, bald piece of wood.

What remained of me was transported to the worst kind of chopper. From what I had heard, they’re called carpenters. This carpenter sliced me in two and molded and chiseled and worked me into two pieces that inlaid together.

A cross. Cross. It was then I understood.

Once completed, I was brought into the middle of a vast crowd of choppers. There was so much noise, and I longed to be back with my friends in that peaceful place. Gone were the days of growing rings. Had I roots, they would have tingled with the knowledge that I was about to face my true and final purpose.

Out of the crowd came another chopper. He was being made into a spectacle and shoved towards me. I could sense how weak he’d become. From the looks of him, he’d experienced a number of chops himself.

We weren’t so different, this chopper and me.

Something crimson oozed from him, the same color my leaves used to turn before I lost them each year. It was almost like the chopper form of sap.

I was startled when he touched me. This one was different. I could feel it. Without any explanation or roots to tell me, I knew: this was no chopper, this was the truest planter that ever existed.

In a way, I think he felt my anguish from my own chopping and knew what I had once been. His touch felt more like a hug. Here he was, the planter, the tree hugger. As he struggled to carry me down the winding path, I found myself wishing the choppers had taken more from me. Wishing I could have suffered more to lessen his suffering. I was too heavy for him to carry.

He stumbled and fell. The choppers were unrelenting, but eventually, they called to one among them to help carry me. This helper had some planter in him. I could tell.

After the excruciating journey, I was set on the ground, and the planter was placed on top of me. Yet another chopper brought a hammer and nail and proceeded to nail the planter to me.

The pain of those piercings was felt by both of us.

Once we were nailed together, the crowd of choppers propped us up for all to see. To my surprise, there were two other crosses as well, one on either side of us.

Through my pain and sorrow, I was amazed by the conversation that happened between the hanged choppers. One was sorry. The other continued to chop. Robbed of tools, he hurled chops with his words. Finally, the planter, to the repentant chopper, gave one last seed. He promised a paradise once it was all over.

As the afternoon wore on, I felt the planter giving up the last of his strength.

The sky grew dark, the ground rumbled, and I longed, once again, for my roots.

Finally, with a loud cry, he yelled, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

We were not so different, the planter and me. We were separated from our roots for a greater purpose, and here, together, we were fulfilling those purposes.

And at last, at long last, he gasped, “It is finished!” and was gone. I felt the absence of the planter part of him. His chopped body remained, but the planter, as I had briefly known him, was gone.

The world was sad. Many choppers-turned-planter wept at his passing.

Eventually, those cruel choppers separated the body from me. I felt the deep loss. Along with his body, I was carried to a tomb. A tomb that was to provide everlasting shade and rest for the planter. Just like me, he was being buried, only it didn’t seem like he was going to get new life.

A new set of choppers was left to stand guard. How many could there possibly be? They were sent to keep watch, because this planter could not be left alone.

Why was that, since his essence was gone?

Just as I thought I could endure no worse, my final destruction began. The chopper guards hacked me into the smallest of pieces, assembled me into a pile, and though I had escaped countless wildfires, my death would come in the form of fire.

And here is where I pick back up and the reason I have so little time to tell you this story.

The chopper guards are gathered around me for warmth, and I can feel myself coming to an end. An end I have no choice but to accept, filled with grief of what might have been.

But wait, the ground is shaking again. The chopper guards are panicked and fearful. They just scattered. In my dying embers, through the smoke, I can see a vision. In disbelief and as I pass on, I can see the result of my sorrowful and spectacular purpose:

The planter lives.

And I can tell it’s going to change everything.