Live oak, river birch, red maple, and dogwood. Canada, Egypt, Kenya, Greece, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and England. Blond, brown, and gray. No, this is not a quiz to see if you recognize patterns. But then again, it may be. Let me explain. It’s not about trees. It’s not about countries. It’s not about hair color. It’s about time.

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love trees. Why is a mystery. I am convinced it has to do with their longevity, their endurance, and my enduring passion for literature. I can recall passages from the writing of Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Faulkner, Walker Percy, Shelby Foote, Dickens, Emily Bronte, and others where trees were delineated with such beauty that they (the trees) became characters. That is, trees became important in characters’ stories. Trees sometimes served as shade, rest, respite, and shelters from storms. Other times, they served as symbols of strength. Other times, they towered with religious significance. Jesus, the most crucial man in history, was nailed to a tree in Jerusalem. Thus, trees are not always just trees in literature.

But there’s more. There is a connection to the countries and colors listed above. I’ve planted at least one tree, but usually several trees, in each place my family and I have lived over the last almost twenty years. Why? To mark time’s passage. To plant tangible signposts of where we’ve been. To remind me not to squander my life and time.

But what of the countries and colors? Recently an old Army friend emailed me some pictures of us two decades ago. Several captured us atop mountains in Switzerland and Austria during a weekend ski trip. My hair (then) was blond. Later it turned brown. Now it’s gray. Other pictures showed us deployed in Bosnia in the 1990s. My hair (then) was blond. Later it turned brown. Now it’s gray. And I understood that time’s an incorrigible thief.

Then I thought of some of the places I’ve visited or lived: Kenya, Canada, England, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Croatia, Italy, Czechoslovakia, France, Egypt, Greece, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, Switzerland, Austria, Indonesia, Hong Kong, etc. There are other places, of course, but I walked through them again in my mind and found myself grinning at memories from each place. And I understood that time’s an incorrigible thief. I’d spent time in these places and they’d shaped me.

Time’s an incorrigible thief. That’s part of why I plant trees on each place my family I reside. They remind me that time’s an incorrigible thief who will steal if we fail to sow, water, feed, tend, and treasure what’s most important. Time steals and yet reveals our treasure. I’m no longer blond, but gray, and (hopefully) wiser, rooted in working at that which endures.