Anne Frank's Chestnut Tree

Consider this entry from Anne Frank's journal (dated Feb. 23, 1944) :

"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs. From my favorite spot on the floor I looked up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little rain drops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind...

"As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy."

Wow. That a mere teenager in such a perilous situation could offer such infinitely profound wisdom is astonishingly poignant. What this angel teaches us is that at every moment of our lives, we have the choice to transcend our circumstances by processing our world with the energy of beauty and appreciation.

In case you may not know, Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager, hid (along with her family and four friends) in an annex of rooms above her father's office in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. They were in hiding for 25 months before being arrested by the Nazis and deported to concentration camps. In March of 1945, at the age of 15, Anne died of typhus at Bergen-Belson.

In the courtyard of the building where Anne and her family hid, stood the above-mentioned chestnut tree. She often made reference to it in her diary (posthumously published as "The Diary of Anne Frank") .

It turns out that the Amsterdam City Council recently gave the current owner of the property permission to cut down the tree. The 150-year-old tree has been attacked by a fungus and is in danger of falling. But let not your heart be troubled. Thankfully, The Anne Frank Museum announced that a sapling from the original chestnut will replace it.

Alas, a chestnut tree will again grow in Amsterdam! And may it stand for at LEAST another 150 years as a symbol of the sacred wisdom and beautiful spirit of Anne Frank.