The image you are looking at is one I’ve seen every day during my lifetime in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania.

This is the entrance of my driveway, ‘guarded’ by two pine trees, more specifically Eastern White Pine trees if I’m not mistaken. These two trees greet and say farewell to the visitors of my household.

You might be asking yourself why they old have their top branches left. There’s no fancy story to it, the bottom branches became dead over time so we just chopped them. However, the rest of the tree is still standing tall.

The pair is an anomaly to me as the rest of our trees such as the two willows we have near it in our yard and another large tree on the edge of our property has been damaged heavily over the years. Through wind and snow and all types of northeastern weather, these two pine trees have stood the test of time.

They are a symbol for myself, as giving final directions to my house, I would just tell them to pull in where the pine trees are if it was their first time coming over.

The trees covered me from rain as a child, as I would huddle under their branches waiting for the bus to not get as wet on miserable rainy days. And today, as they grow older and older, they still remain strong.

They are a good comparison to people living life too. Getting hit and being faced with adversity but not wavering. Standing strong. Everyday standing stronger and stronger. Providing for others in the habitat, such as excess amounts of pollen just like a family nurtures those around them.

The pine trees saw me off to college and greeted me when I came back from an unprecedented virus. The experiences they have incurred are as interesting as the ones I have lived through.

I never would of thought I would have grown up and respected a pair of trees, but they’re a part of my childhood and life moving forward.