A Promise in the Pines

For my grandfather, Earl, who saw in me what I—and others—couldn’t yet see in myself. Your quiet belief has stayed with me these long years. I miss you every day.

I was eight years old the year I began to learn what Christmas really meant—not from my loving Christian parents, or the reverent hymns at church, or the mountain of ribbon-wrapped gifts under the tree, but from an old widower who wandered into our family’s tree lot one frostbitten morning.

My family owned a tree farm called Pine Hollow Trees & Trails, a sloping stretch of evergreens tucked against the foothills of northern Colorado. It had been in our family for generations—first my great-grandparents, then my grandparents, then my parents—long enough that the pines felt like relatives themselves. While my two older siblings, both boys, got to haul saws and guide customers, I was told—constantly, aggravatingly—that I was “too young to help.”

So I spent most of my childhood Decembers sulking along the edges of the hiking trail behind the lot, kicking pinecones and imagining myself older, wiser, and indispensable. That morning, the feeling of being unnecessary clung to me the way early frost clings to pine needles—quiet, stubborn, unwilling to melt.

That was when I first saw him.

A tall, quiet man in a weathered wool coat, his hands deep in his pockets as though even the cold hurt differently now. His face looked carved—lined in the way someone’s face becomes when grief chooses them and refuses to let go. He paused at the trailhead, staring up at the ridge with an expression so strained it felt private, as if he were bracing for something only he could see.

But I recognized loneliness when I saw it, even at eight. It was the same ache I felt whenever my brothers went off to help our customers without me.

I marched right up to him.

“You look like you could use a friend,” I announced, because subtlety was never my style.

He blinked, startled. Then laughed—a rusty sound, like old hinges working loose. “Do I?”

“Well, I mean, I could use a friend,” I said, just as bluntly. “My family says I’m too young to help with our customers. I’m not, for the record.”

He smiled—a small, reluctant tug, as if he hadn’t smiled in a long while. “I’m Walter Hayes,” he said, offering his hand.

“Lila Bennett,” I said, shaking it. “Have you picked out your tree yet?”

He looked over the rows of spruces, then back at the trail. “Not yet. I need to walk first.” His voice softened to almost nothing. “I’ve walked this trail many times…but now it feels different. Lonesome, even. I’m not quite sure I can walk it alone.”

“Well, I can walk with you, if you want,” I offered immediately.

He nodded.

And so we walked.

As we wound through the quiet woods, stepping over frozen branches and listening to winter settle into the trees, Walter told me about his late wife—how each year, for fifty-two years, they’d walked this trail before choosing a Christmas tree from our lot. She passed away in September, so this was the first December he was walking the trail without her.

After we reached the last bend in the path, he rested his hand against the withered trunk of the old pine tree marking the end of the trail. A recent snowfall had piled high around its base, a soft white collar that looked almost like an ethereal hug.

“My wife, Clara, once told me,” he said, struggling for the words, “that if she went first, she would send me a sign here. Something that only I would understand.”

“What kind of sign?”

Walter chuckled softly. “She never said. Only that I would know it when I saw it.”

I frowned at the unfairness of such a heart-wrenching mystery. Adults were always leaving out the important stuff. “Well, if you ever do see it, you have to show me. Not just tell me. Promise?”

He studied me for a moment, then nodded. “I promise, Lila.”

After our hike that day, we found Walter’s tree—or, rather, I found his tree, but only because he’d let me find it—small, imperfect, leaning a little too far to the left. He looked at it with such reverence and whispered, “Clara would’ve loved this one.”

He let me help him drag it across the lot to his car, even though I was hardly any help at all. I stumbled and dropped my half of the tree more times than I cared to count. Still, he acted like I was essential, and for the first time that season, I believed it.

The next December, Walter returned. This time, he brought with him a thermos full of hot cocoa. He said it was a recipe his late wife had perfected over their lifetime together—one he’d spent the past year trying to get right, especially for me. He handed it to me with ceremony. “Every tree expert needs proper supplies.” Once again, he pretended he needed my opinion on selecting the perfect tree, though we both knew my pick wasn’t his. But whenever I said, “This is the one,” he nodded as if I’d noticed something profound that no one else could see.

Year after year, our pattern held. By the time I was thirteen, our walks had settled into something steady and familiar. Walter didn’t offer stories about his wife lightly—I could feel how carefully he chose his words. But slowly, as the seasons added up, he began sharing small memories with me. Little things. Quiet things. Pieces of her he seemed to trust me with.

He told me how Clara had always collected the first pinecone she saw each season, how she sang carols off-key as they hiked, and how she would squeeze his hand three times—once for I, once for love, once for you—whenever she wanted him to know she adored him without speaking.

I kept every memory he trusted me with tucked close to my heart.

The Christmas after I turned thirteen, I noticed he moved more slowly. He stopped more often. He smiled, but it took effort. Still, he kept up with our tradition of hiking before I selected the perfectly imperfect tree for him, saying, “Lead the way, Lila,” as though I were guiding him somewhere sacred.

That was the last Christmas we shared.

Walter passed away the following spring, just after my fourteenth birthday. His son came to our farm to tell me—to let me know how much my friendship had meant to Walter. To tell me that I was the only one he’d trusted to continue the tradition of choosing the perfect tree he and Clara once sought, even though many people had offered to join him in the tradition.

He’d refused them all. Except for me.

At fourteen, I was old enough to understand death but young enough for it to undo me in ways I didn’t know how to name. Losing Walter wasn’t just grief—it was having to let go of the one person in my childhood who’d ever looked straight at me and seen someone capable, someone worth choosing. My family loved me, sure, but Walter had needed me—not out of duty or politeness or pity, but in a way that made me feel sturdy and real. And I’d needed him, too. It was as if the empty places in each of us had recognized one another and quietly agreed to fit.

When December returned, my dad finally agreed I was old enough to help on the lot. He let me trim branches, tie twine, and steady trees on car roofs. I should have felt proud; I’d waited long enough. Instead, the forest surrounding us felt like a weight on my chest.

For the first time, I didn’t walk the trail. Not once. The woods felt too silent, too hollow—like a place missing its echo, or a person missing their best friend.

Another year passed. I grew taller. Quieter. Fifteen made me feel older in ways I hadn’t expected—more grounded, more aware, more ready.

And that December, I finally felt ready to face the trail.

The early-season snow lay in thin, luminous patches. I followed the familiar curve of the path, the one Walter and I’d walked so many times. I found myself looking for whatever sign he’d searched for after his wife died—the one she’d promised she would send and that he would know as soon as he saw it. As far as I knew, he’d never found it, because he’d promised to show it to me when he did.

Every step forward felt like knocking on a door that wasn’t going to open.

But when I reached the farthest bend, the last bend before the trail ended, I froze.

Half-buried in the snow, leaning against the trunk of the old pine tree that marked the end of the trail, was a sign that looked like it had been there for years. Old. Weathered. Etched into a piece of rotting wood. But unmistakable. With the way the snow piled up around here, I’d never noticed it until now.

Carved in delicate, steady script were the words: “You’ll know.”

My breath caught.

It was Clara’s sign. I was sure of it.

I knelt, brushing the snow aside. Beneath her sign lay a second one, etched into a smaller piece of wood—newer, rougher, and a little crooked, much like the trees I’d always found for Walter.

In uneven strokes were the words: “And you will, too.”

My fingers traced the lower edge, and there—carved with unmistakable care—were two initials: W.H.

Walter Hayes.

Understanding swept through me softly, the way snow falls when the wind doesn’t interfere.

Walter had found his sign—his wife’s sign. The one meant for him alone. And he hadn’t told me, not because he wanted to keep it private, but because years ago, when I was small and desperate for certainty, I’d insisted: “If you ever see it, you have to show me. Not tell me.”

And now Walter had done exactly that. He’d waited for a moment when I would be old enough to understand, old enough to carry the weight of what both signs had meant—for him, and now for me. He wanted me to come to this place when I was ready, to stand where he’d once stood, and to see the proof that love doesn’t end with death—that it stays with those of us who remain, and travels with those who’ve passed on.

Walter hadn’t chosen me because he needed help. He’d chosen me because something in me—even at eight—reached a part of him that no one else could. I’d given him company that was real, not careful. And he’d given me a place where I finally felt like I mattered.

A sudden warmth spread through me, as if a welcoming fire had pushed through the chill drifting between the branches—a peace that didn’t erase the ache but made room beside it.

I whispered into the quiet woods, “Thank you, Walter. For everything.”

And for the first time since he died, the trail felt whole again—like it had been waiting for me, the way he once did.

© 2025 Lowvee Cole. All rights reserved. 

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.