Heart wrenchingly gorgeous. Poignantly thought-provoking.

What lends the story so much poignancy is not only the unconditional, almost-blind love the tree lends to the boy, but the passing of time, irreversible and destructive, that morphs the boy from innocence to ignorance. The author lends his vivid voice to the transformative power of growth in inducing pragmatic, utilitarian nature in almost every one of us.

Someone commented that she cannot read it without crying every time, despite having read it 100 times before. Similarly, as a young adult, the short storybook touched my heartstring so intensely and sorrowfully that I have to cover my mouth from shivers and tears on every page I scrolled down.

"He used to swing on her leaves.

Play hide-and-seek with her.

Climb on her trunk.

Laughters spread.

As time went by, the tree was often alone.

Take my apples so you can get money.

Cut my branches to build yourself a house.

Use my trunk to sail away."

What's the moral here?

When the boy grew up, the tree became happy only when it embroils itself to fragments and chaos, in contrast to the bell-like calls sprinkling on any usual summer afternoon in his childhood.

Someone deems the love as twisted, self-destructive.

But it's the purest kind in the world -- a kind of love transcending the out-spoken ego capable of unwinding time, an epic love yearning to bring us back to our spiritual home and dispel the deepest darkness.

Our loved ones...approach them when they are still here. Don't let the cruelty of time benumb our instincts to warm them. Tell them some jokes. Listen to their dusty stories. Warm them with a few words of love, just as the way they always treat us.

They can be happy as long as you are there.

And, don't get 'too big,' 'too busy,' 'too old and sad' to hearken back to our childhood, where endless days of singing and peals of laughter await.