"What is love, my friends?" he asked, opening his arms as though he wished to embrace us. "What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The I and the you vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved. "
Uncle explained that the pines and oaks will not spread into the fields to grow and make a new woods, unless we leave the ground unseeded. My uncle envisioned that this barren land was to become a new forest, one of great beauty and repose. "To be poor and be without trees, is to be the most starved human being in the world. To be poor and have trees, is to be completely rich in ways that money can never buy."