Honestly, Sandie

Gemstones 29/30

I didn’t know Tree Agate existed until I started writing this series.

Then I saw it and smiled.

A white stone with green branches stretching across its surface. It looks less like a gemstone and more like someone pressed a tree into stone and decided that was beautiful enough.

It was.

The more I learned about Tree Agate, the more I realized I already knew someone exactly like it.

I met Tree Agate because of one of her granddaughters. Then we ended up serving together on the media team, and between Sunday mornings, camera cables, sarcasm, and laughing far harder than we probably should have, we became friends.

Sarcasm is a perfectly acceptable foundation for a lifelong friendship.

One of my favorite things has always been watching Tree Agate with Alex. They’re kindred spirits. They both collect stories. They both know how to carry a room without demanding one. They both say exactly what everyone else is thinking, then act surprised when the whole room starts laughing.

I’m convinced they would’ve found each other in any version of this story.

I don’t think Tree Agate has ever been interested in building a big life.

She’s been building a big table.

The table just kept getting bigger.

Some people have a gift for making you feel welcome.

Tree Agate skips that step.

She starts treating you like family.

Eventually, you realize everyone else does too.

I’ve never walked into her house wondering if we’d be taken care of. That question doesn’t exist there. You’re getting fed. Your kids are leaving with a job. Need someone to pray with you? Sit down. Need a place to land for a while? She’ll make room.

She grew up too poor for shoes.

The people who started with the least are usually the quickest to make sure everyone else has enough.

I’ve watched babies become teenagers.

Teenagers become adults.

Grandkids become some of my favorite people.

I’ve watched people become family without ever changing their last name.

She made another plate.

Pulled up another chair.

Asked one more question.

Loved one more person.

Then there was Petrified Wood.

If Tree Agate was the roots, Petrified Wood was the storyteller.

Petrified wood begins as a living tree. Over time, minerals slowly replace the wood itself, but the grain remains. The rings remain. You can still see the life it lived long after it has become something else.

I’ve never met someone who could fill a room the way he could.

Every story somehow became three more.

Every one of them worth hearing.

Years ago I photographed Tree Agate and Petrified Wood for an anniversary session at their home. At one point they started dancing in the kitchen.

Nobody asked them to.

They just did.

I didn’t know what I was preserving.

Now I do.

It wasn’t a pose.

It was a marriage.

In 2023, I photographed the whole family. More than twenty-five people. Kids. Grandkids. Stories. Laughter. Meals. Beautiful chaos.

I wasn’t just photographing a family.

I was photographing what two people can grow when they spend decades choosing each other.

Neither of us knew how much those photographs would come to mean.

I’m grateful we didn’t.

Nobody was trying to make memories.

They were simply living them.

Tree Agate also helped plant something she believed would become a place where people belonged. Watching it slowly become something different hurt. I know it did. It hurt me too.

I think part of both of us wished it could become what it once was.

But Tree Agate understood something before I did.

There was no going back.

Only forward.

She didn’t stop opening her home.

She didn’t stop feeding people.

She didn’t stop laughing.

She didn’t stop making room.

She kept moving.

Life eventually asked Tree Agate to carry the one thing I never wanted her to.

She said goodbye to Petrified Wood.

If anyone had earned the right to disappear for a while, it was her.

Instead…

She called me.

She knew what Alex and I were facing with our own son, and while carrying a grief I can’t even imagine, she still found room to ask how we were doing.

I’ve never forgotten that.

Some people stop pouring into others when life empties them.

Tree Agate never seemed to know how.

The chorus says,

“I want a house with a crowded table, and a place by the fire for everyone.”

Those lyrics belong to this family.

Trees don’t stop growing because someone else needs shade.

They grow because that’s what trees do.

Tree Agate spent a lifetime planting.

Petrified Wood spent a lifetime telling the story.

I thought I was taking pictures.

I was documenting roots.

Some people leave behind memories.

Tree Agate and Petrified Wood left behind roots.

And roots have a remarkable way of keeping a forest alive long after the people who planted it are gone. 🎵 Crowded Table