Green Diary

Our family has always planted trees – not just for the environment, but as living memories.

When I was born, my father planted a cherry tree. The cherries were large, red, sweet. My sister’s birth brought a magnificent peach tree. Every Christmas, our dream toys and picture books waited under the fragrant living evergreen tree.  When the celebrations ended, we took the tree to one of our places in nature where we usually went on a picnic and planted it. And for every event that was special to us, we preserved the memory and captured the time by planting a tree or shrub with roses or blackberries.

As we grew, so did our green forest of memories and recollections. I knew the birch when I graduated, I enjoyed the white flowers of the apple tree when I became a doctor. Mario and I planted a pine tree.  Some left a padlock closed on the bridge over the river Vardar as a symbol of eternal love. Others engraved initials and hearts in the bark of the trees in the park like tattoos. We planted the pine. And what if we part and everyone goes their own way – I thought to myself. Then we will plant a new tree and the old one will keep our memories.

And when these days have gone by, our memories will turn green and bloom everywhere, someone will eat the red cherries or fall asleep in the shade of the pine.

Many dear people are gone, but every spring when the jasmine blossoms and fills the world with fragrance, I hear the happy voices and laughter of my family who planted the jasmine that spring. “Let each of us make a beautiful wish and plant the bush with love. “We will promise everyone who is sad from here to bring joy.”

I wished our souls to stay forever in the scent of jasmine.