Dear Reader,

Thank you for wanting to read my story. My father died of Alzheimer’s in 2003. The seed of Men, Like Trees came from a conversation I had with Dad one spring morning in 1987, walking with him in the front yard. Months later, I would discover that he and Mom had received his test results the day before. As we walked, I remember noticing some white crab apple trees weren’t blossoming like the others near the house and asked him why. Dad took a lot of pride in the trees and flowers he and Mom planted over the years.

Looking up through the tall oak tree that shadowed these crab apples, he said, “They aren’t getting enough sunlight because this old oak overshadows them.”

I looked up through the oak and said, “Do you want me to get the chain saw and thin out some of the dead wood so more sunlight might peak through to the crab apples?”

He looked to the base of the tree and seemed to be lost in thought. Then he turned to me, with a different look in his eyes, and put a loving hand around my neck and said, “God has already put that in motion.”

Not until a year later, as I saw the oak dying from infestation and remembering what the doctors had told him the day before our walk, did I realize he saw himself in the old oak he had enjoyed for so many years.

• • •

I pray my story gives you and your family the same hope my father’s life and his love gave to us; a hope that with God, all things work for the good. And may the words of the 5 Love Letters act as a healing salve upon your heart, to wash away any pain, guilt, regrets, or sadness in things you feel are left undone or unsaid. God bless you and your family.

“And he shall be like a tree 

planted by streams of water, 

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf shall not whither.

Whatsoever he does will prosper.”

Psalm 1:3

Sincerely Yours,


Tom