By. Elizabeth Garden
Tree of Lives
“Ruth tapped a tiny nail through a hole in the stem of a six-inch metal leaf, securing it to a handsome mahogany backboard. The leaf has someone’s name engraved on it, the last leaf, for now, to be affixed to her missing husband’s brass tree that dominated eighteen feet of the lobby wall.
The young artist adjusted the leaf a bit, then stepped back, almost bumping into an older woman in a suit.
“‘It is a Tree of Life and all that cling to it are happy’ as the saying goes,” the woman said, placing a warm hand on Ruth’s arm. “Did you create this?”
Ruth hesitated a bit. “Well, yes, actually.”
Not a lie. Although Pratik was officially the person commissioned for the project, she was the one who thought of the concept that he didn’t complete. She decided it was not only terrible karma to have accepted the money for the project and never finish it. Besides, the hospital could have sued and won.
According to the general implication in her parents’ household, as a mere girl, her life was essentially without any purpose beyond getting married and reproducing. But to Ruth it certainly wasn’t without purpose. Because there is beauty and there is art that celebrates it like a secret language, she was reassured and connected to something greater than her immediate surroundings by creating art. Even if it was somebody else’s.”
Tree of Lives is the story of a young artist named Ruth and her struggle to overcome her abusive family that was haunted by hidden trauma.
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