The Season of the Pinecone

                  The days were getting shorter, and the nights were as cold as the wind was fierce. The pinecone lost its hold when one such wind blasted the mountain face. If a pinecone could see, it would watch the tree that gave it life disappear behind a thick blanket of fog. That tree, growing on the side of a mountain for the last four thousand years, was the only home the pinecone had ever known, and now it was gone. 

Even though the pinecone was in the infancy of its existence, its purpose in life was already fulfilled. It had created precious seeds and set them free so that they would one day become beautiful trees that would then make pinecones of their own. If a pinecone could experience loss, it would miss its seeds dearly. 

Gravity and time pushed the pinecone toward the next season of its life. Hitting the ground, the pinecone bounced several times then rolled to a stop precariously balanced at the edge of a crag. If a pinecone could have hopes and desires, it would hope for the company of another tree, so that it wouldn’t be lonely for the remainder of its time. 

            Another gust of wind and the pinecone rolled over the edge. More bumps and obstacles broke its beautiful scales. Those scales had protected its seeds with hypervigilant strength and vitality, and now they were battered and broken. If a pinecone could mourn, it would mourn the loss of its scales.

Inertia finally abandoned the pinecone when it fell between the gnarly roots of a large tree. The bark of the tree scraped over the pinecone’s damaged scales soothingly, like a lover’s caress. The pinecone would spend the final seasons of its existence nestled safely beside a beloved companion. There was nothing more a pinecone could ask for, if a pinecone could ask for such things. 

The tree silently shielded the pinecone from the harsh snows of many winters, the torrential rains of numerous springs, the blazing heat of countless summers, and the heavy winds of a myriad of autumns. The years had been peaceful for the pinecone which was now little more than its three-inch core. Its body was so brittle and small that it looked more like a stick than a pinecone. A far cry from its once magnificent scale-covered cone-shaped body. 

              If a pinecone could sense the coming of its end, then it would have said goodbye to its dear friend, the tree. But a pinecone could sense no such things, nor could it speak, so it silently disintegrated into the dirt becoming the life force for the trees from which it came into existence. 

If a pinecone could experience love, it would have felt the love from the forest that was its home during all the seasons of its life. And I believe it absolutely did.