Dear Shel Silverstein,

It’s been awhile since my eyes have graced your creative books, big fan. Oh I almost forgot, we have never formally met, I’m the little girl who was basically raised on your poems, now a dying student who is eager to get out of school. So you may be wondering, why I am a writing you now, well I am growing up in this world, and, due to assignments and deadlines, I did what any responsible young adult would so, and wasted my gifted time, by doing everything but study. Along my tireless efforts of scrolling through social media, I came across a post with one of your poems. I laughed at first about this silly little glimpse of my childhood. One thing lead to another and I began thinking of a story my mom would hesitate to read to me, this story of yours. No, she loved the book, it wasn’t that is bad or anything, she just hated that fact she could never get through the pages without leaking like a busted dam. To her this book hit home hard in a ways as a child I couldn't understand.

This book at the time, held no meaning to me besides a book to read at night. Cozied up to my mom, while she tried to get the wild child I was to settle down for bed, acting as if she didn’t just moments ago have to practically sit on me to it still, bless her soul. My mind was too young to understand the parallels between real life and fiction that drove her to tears

At the time it didn’t occur to me that, I was, in fact, the boy, taking everything I could from my mother and never thinking about it twice. But as my eyes and mind have ripened with age, I have come to see her selflessness. How she selflessly given up everything for me and I selfishly took,without even thinking. For that I am grateful. So out of all the poems I could have scrolled through I decided to do my piece on you and your book, “The Giving Tree.”

Why this book? Well see that's where I am going to get a bit personal, see my mother has sacrificed so much for her children's happiness and only recently have I seen the stark parallel to the tree. She held onto a things for way too long in hopes to preserve a dual peace she felt would be beneficial to her kids and decided to finally let go when she realized the harm it actually produced. That my mother would give up everything for her children.

Well enough about me, I have some compelling questions for you. You wrote this book before having any children, so where did your source of inspirations come from? Your own parents? Or did you feel this way on your own? Why are tree, why not an actual mother? Is the fact it is a boy tree relationship symbolize adoption or did you intend it to pan in all parent child relationships? How would you comfort children who don’t feel this way from their own parents? Was this book just a cheap gimmick to paw into the hearts of those who had children?

A few years after the publishing of this book you did have a child, and 12 years after that you lost her. If you felt this way before having children, I can only imagine the intensity of your emotions that followed her passing. How did you recover from this traumatic event?

Most of your poems are grouped together in a collection, I liked the fact that the giving tree is given it’s own book. This idea that all children are supposed to be the boy angers me, because on top of being the boy, I am also the tree. I am a giver on top of being the taker. But I believe everyone is capable of being both, I have given more than my fair share in this life. I am down to my trunk all while still demanding pieces of the shattered remains of my mother. I know it's unfair to ask you all these demanding question, but sometimes you gotta hurt a little, to get the truth.

Sincerely,

The Tortilla