The Amazing Elm Tree

Po Bronson, in his book WHY DO I LOVE THESE PEOPLE? (Random House, 2005),  tells a true story about a magnificent elm tree.

 The tree was planted in the first half of the 20th Century on a farm near  Beulah, Michigan (USA). It grew to be a magnificent tree.

 In the 1950s, the family that owned the farm kept a bull chained to the  elm. The bull paced around the tree, dragging a heavy iron chain  with him, which scraped a trench in the bark about three feet off ground.

 The trench deepened over the years, though for whatever  reason did not kill the tree.

 After some years, the family sold the farm and took their bull. They cut  the chain, leaving the loop around the tree and one link hanging  down. Over the years, bark slowly covered the rusting chain.

 Then one year, agricultural catastrophe struck Michigan in the form of  Dutch Elm Disease. It left a path of death across vast areas. All of  the elms lining the road leading to the farm became infected and died.

 Everyone figured that old, stately elm would be next. There was no way  the tree could last, between the encroaching fungus and its chain belt  strangling its trunk.

 The farm's owners considered doing the safe thing: pulling it out and  chopping it up into firewood before it died and blew over onto the  barn in a windstorm. But they simply could not bring themselves to do it.

 It was as if the old tree had become a family friend. So they  decided to let nature take its course.

 Amazingly, the tree did not die. Year after year it thrived. Nobody could  understand why it was the only elm still standing in the county!

 Plant pathologists from Michigan State University came out to observe the  tree. They observed the scar left by the iron chain, now almost  completely covered by bark and badly corroded. The plant experts decided  that it was the chain that saved the elm's life. They reasoned that the  tree must have absorbed so much iron from the rusting chain that it became  immune to the fungus.

 It's said that what doesn't kill you will make you stronger. Or, as Ernest  Hemingway put it, "Life breaks us all, but afterwards, many of  us are strongest at the broken places."  The next time you're in Beulah,  Michigan, look for that beautiful elm.  It spans 60 feet across its lush,  green crown. The trunk is about 12 feet in circumference. Look for the  wound made by the chain. It serves as a reminder that because of our  wounds, we can have hope! Our wounds can give us resources we need to cope  and survive. They can truly make us strong.