Bryan, the tree branch had fallen from his home. A giant gust of wind blew in and broke him right off of the tree. As Bryan fell to the ground, he looked up at the tree, and said, “ I shouldn’t be down here. I’ve got to figure out how to get back up.”
“Good luck, it’s useless,” said a voice nearby.
As Bryan the branch looked around on the ground there were dozens of other branches just like him that had fallen from the same tree. Some were old and some were young like him.
“I stopped trying a long time ago,“ Olivia the old branch said out loud. “No matter how hard I tried, and no matter what I did, I could never climb back up and be connected to the tree again.“
Pam the proud branch spoke. “Well I don’t need to be connected to the old tree anymore. Look, I still have all my leaves.” Pam not only had leaves, she still had a piece of fruit connected to her.
“I used to think I didn’t need the tree anymore, too,” Olivia, the old branch said. “But eventually all my leaves faded away, and so did my fruit.”
“So what happens next?” Bryan asked.
“Do you see all of this mulch and dirt everywhere?“ Olivia said. “Well, I’m afraid that is all we have to look forward to.”
“Actually,” Walter the wise branch said, “there is still one thing that could happen, but it is out of our control. If the gardener wants to, he can graft us back to the tree.”
“Graft us back to the tree?” Bryan asked with a confused voice. “What does that mean?”
“Yes,” Walter the wise branch said. “If the gardener wants to, he can slice open the tree and reconnect us back to it. But only he can do it.”
The next morning, the gardener came outside and picked up a handful of branches including Olivia the old branch and threw them in the wheelbarrow and wheeled them away. Bryan was nervous that he would be thrown with the other broken branches, but he remained hopeful that one day he could be grafted back to the tree again.
A few minutes later, the gardener picked up a sharp knife and cut deep into the tree. Then he picked up Bryan the branch, and with the same knife began cutting away some of the wood from his branch.
“Ouch, that hurts,” Bryan said as the gardener continued cutting.
The gardener did the same thing to Pam the proud branch, but she resisted.
Then the gardener stuck Bryan the branch in the slit of the tree and wrapped tape around it.
When Bryan realized he was in the air again attached to the tree he clapped his hands and sang a song. He was finally home. He welcomed the life that came from being connected to the tree, but Pam, on the other hand, did not. Pam, the proud branch rejected it. Even though she was also grafted to the tree, she refused to depend on it anymore, and hardened her branch so that none of the life from the tree would flow to her.
Eventually, Pam the proud branch withered away and fell from the tree again only to be discarded in the pile of old branches. But Bryan, who fully depended on the tree, lived a long, fruitful life. Even though the gardener would occasionally trim off some of his old sticks and leaves, he would produce even more and more fruit every year, and Bryan never fell from the tree again.