It all started with the writing of “The Lesson of the Oak Tree,” a tribute to one tree in one yard in my past. When the oak and I first met, I was a young mother and it was barely bigger than a sapling. I always considered it just another tree in a yard, until30

Recently I was taken back to the house where I lived while enduring years of spousal abuse. It’s curious how some things that mean very little to others rivet our own attention. There in the front yard stood a stately, huge oak tree. I was amazed. I kept repeating to the reporter who was interviewing30