Chapter 03 · 4 min 37 sec
The Roots We Cannot See
The invisible inheritance — what our ancestors planted in us without us knowing.
Lyrics· 351 words
The world admires the tallest branches Reaching proudly toward the sky The leaves that dance in golden sunlight The beauty visible to every eye But nobody stops to wonder What keeps that giant standing there Through every storm, through every winter Year after year
Because the strongest things in life Are rarely seen at all We admire the branches But it's the roots we cannot see The quiet years The countless moments that become our history The storms we weather The tears we dry
The reasons we stayed when we could have said goodbye That's where the strength lives That's where the truth will be And the roots we cannot see A friendship isn't built in laughter Though laughter helps along the way
It's built in all the days between When life gets hard and people stay A family isn't made by blood alone Nor promises spoken easily It's built in every act of kindness Nobody else will ever see And every year adds another ring To who we choose to be
We admire the branches But it's the roots we cannot see The phone calls answered The doors left open to shared uncertainty The times we failed The times we forgave The reasons we stayed when we could have walked away
That's where the strength lives That's where the truth will be And the roots we cannot see One day the leaves will fall One day the seasons change One day the world may forget our names But the love we planted, the trust we grew
Will still be holding everything long after we're gone Because magnificent things are never built in moments They are built in years, in patience, in loyalty In choosing each other again and again
We admire the branches Stretching higher every year But every beautiful thing above Began somewhere down here And the roots we cannot see The sacrifices, the faith, the time The people who became our home
By standing through every season of our lives The strongest part of any tree is hidden underground Just like love, just like family Just like us
*A story about the things we inherit*
The oak tree in Sofia's grandmother's garden was older than anyone could remember.
"How old?" Sofia asked one afternoon, sitting underneath it with her avó, who was teaching her to shell beans.
"Your great-great-grandfather planted it," her grandmother said. "He brought the acorn from the north, from his village, when he moved here as a young man. He wanted something from home to grow where he was going."
Sofia looked up at the tree. Its branches spread so wide they covered half the garden. Birds had built nests in it. A cat slept in the fork of the lowest branch every afternoon at exactly three o'clock.
"He never got to see it like this," she said.
"No," said her grandmother. "He died before it was even as tall as you. But he planted it anyway."
Sofia thought about that while she shelled beans. "That's strange," she finally said. "To plant something you'll never see."
Her grandmother smiled and didn't say anything for a while. Then she said: "When I was your age, I didn't understand it either. But now I think he understood something I was too young to know. That what you do doesn't only belong to your own life. It belongs to the lives after yours, too."
Sofia looked at her hands — thin fingers, short nails, a small scar on the left thumb she'd got falling off a bicycle. Her grandmother's hands were doing the same movement: pod, press, drop.
"Are my hands like his?" she asked suddenly.
Her grandmother looked at her with an expression Sofia couldn't quite name. "Your hands are like your mother's. Your mother's are like mine. Mine are like my mother's. And hers—" she paused "— hers, I was told, were like a man who planted an oak tree and never saw it grow."
Sofia looked at the tree. She looked at her hands.
It was a strange feeling — to be connected, by something as ordinary as the shape of your fingers, to someone who had stood in this same garden a hundred years ago and done something kind for people who weren't born yet.
She felt, suddenly, less alone than she ever had.
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*We carry more than we know — and more people carry a piece of us than we'll ever meet.*
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