My Response to “The Giving Tree”

The poem “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein tells us a moving story: A tree loved a boy, and she tried her best to make the boy happy by giving things throughout the boy’s life.

When I read the poem, I could not help comparing the tree as a mother, and the boy was her son. Then the poem became a story about the human beings. After a deep consideration, I’m going to paraphrase the story as following:

Once upon a time, there was a boy. When the boy was young, the happiest thing for him was to stay with his mother. He always wanted to hug her, play with her, and get food from her. When he felt tired, he slept in his mother’s arms. Obviously, the boy loved his mother very much at that time. However, after the boy grew up, he went to school. Then he started to have many friends. He spent all his spare time with his friends or computer games. Therefore, he seldom went home or had a talk with his mother. As long as he wanted money, otherwise, he didn’t want to stay with her a second. Then, the boy became an adult. He needed more things at that time, such as a house, a wife, and a successful career. He needed an investment, but he didn’t have enough money, then he turned to his family — his mother. After a few years, the boy realized that his siblings were intending to comminute his parents’ wealth after his mother was sent to hospital. The boy came to his mother’s sickbed and told her that he still had many things to do, and again, he needed her help. A decade later, the boy became very old. One day, he went to visit his mother. He spent a long time to climb a mountain to the place in where his mother was. He fell on his knees when he arrived, and asked her what he could do for her at that time, but his mother would not answer him anymore. The boy sat with his mother as he did when he was young, then a drop of tears fell into the earth…

It is the story what I heard from “The Giving Tree.” I don’t know what your feelings will be after you read it. The only one thing I want to point out is I hope this kind of tragedy won’t be acted by human beings anymore. No matter the giving tree or the boy, I’m sure both of them are not really happy during the process of giving and receiving, are they?