Father of the Rain

“I remember sitting alone in the evening on the grass one of the first nights we lived in that house and looking up at that tree, just a slender little tree with smooth bark, and I got this feeling about the tree, that I liked it and it liked me. And it occurred to me that the tree didn’t care if I was black or white. Really, honestly, didn’t care. It didn’t matter to the tree. And for a few seconds I kind of felt like I was floating. I think that’s the first time and maybe the last time I felt free, truly free.”
“From being black?” I asked.
“From being anything but what I really was.”