If Only Trees Could Talk

Chapter 14: The Language Of Fallen Leaves

(A lesson for learning to let go.)

It started with a single leaf.
Yellowed at the edges. Torn in places.
It hung by a thread, trembling in the cold hush of early autumn,
as if unsure whether it was ready to fall.

You stood beneath it, watching.
Not blinking.
Not breathing.
Just waiting.

There was something in the air—
not quite sadness, but something close.
Like the last note of a lullaby still echoing after the song ends.
You didn't know why it mattered so much,
why this one leaf caught your chest like a memory that hadn't surfaced in years.

And then, without fanfare, it dropped.
No dramatic whirl.
Just... let go.
Quietly.
Gracefully.

It didn't scream.
It didn't beg the branch to hold on a little longer.
It simply accepted that its time there was done.

The forest didn't mourn it.
The tree didn't flinch.
The earth caught it like it was always meant to.

That's when the tree spoke—
a voice not made of sound, but of stillness.
The kind of voice you feel behind your ribcage.

"Why do you cling to what is already leaving?"

You didn't answer.
Because you knew exactly what it meant.

You've held on, haven't you?
To friendships that only gave silence in return.
To words that hurt, just because you weren't ready to unhear them.
To guilt.
To "should-haves."
To versions of yourself you've outgrown, but still wear like armor.

Letting go, for you, has always felt like giving up.
But the tree—bare, proud, honest—showed you something else.

Letting go... can be an act of faith.

"I don't lose my leaves because I'm dying," the tree whispered.
"I lose them because I'm preparing to live again."

You exhaled.
A long, shaky breath.
One you didn't know you were holding.

You looked around.
Leaves scattered like broken yesterdays, painting the ground in sunset shades—
burnt orange, deep red, mustard gold.

It didn't look like loss.
It looked like art.

And suddenly, the things you've been dragging behind you—
the grudges, the expectations, the weight of pretending—
they felt heavy in your hands.

So heavy.

And for the first time, you asked yourself:

"What if I laid them down?"
Not to forget.
Not to erase.
But to free your arms for something new.

You sat beneath the tree.
Hands resting on the fallen leaves.
They didn't beg to be picked back up.
They just lay there—soft and silent and still.

The wind carried a single leaf into your lap.
A gift.
A reminder.

"There is no shame in endings," the tree said.
"Only the space they create for beginnings."

You remembered all the people who left without goodbye.
The moments you stayed in places your soul had outgrown.
The versions of you that tried so hard to be enough.

You are not betraying them by letting them go.
You are honoring them.
By making room for the next season.

You close your eyes, and imagine it:

You—lighter.
Not empty, but clear.
Not lost, but in transition.
Like branches preparing for snowfall.

And as the forest rustled around you—soft, ancient, forgiving—
you whispered something into the dusk:

"I'm allowed to release what doesn't belong to me anymore."
"I don't have to carry what isn't mine to hold."

The tree swayed gently.
Not in approval.
In understanding.

And in that moment, beneath a sky split with purple twilight,
you felt something unclench inside you.
Something uncoil.
Something begin again.

Letting go didn't feel like breaking.
It felt like returning.
To who you were before you learned to hold on so tightly.

The forest didn't ask you to be unscarred.
Only unburdened.

And as you stood, brushing leaves from your shoulders,
you didn't feel like a person who had lost things.

You felt like someone
who had just made space to grow.

Letting go is not giving up. It's trusting that what falls now might bloom later—in ways you can't yet imagine."