2022: Caregiving Lessons from the Forest Floor
Or, what we can learn from the power and promise of 'nurse logs'
As we head into a new year, I can’t stop thinking about the natural phenomenon of nurse logs, which I just learned about this fall. Common in the Pacific Northwest and California, nurse logs are ancient trees that have fallen, weary and wise, to the forest floor. These massive logs tumble from cool heights and make space to decay surrounded by life. They flatten rocky pathways and luminous mosses indiscriminately, knowing their fall signifies both an end and a beginning.
These wonders of nature gave me inspiration and hope in 2021, and they fuel my aspirations for 2022 and beyond.
At first glance, they may look like lifeless obstacles on the ground. But biologists and forest lovers know better. Look closer to see these trees’ pocked barks providing both vital nutrients to all kinds of life and fertile spaces for seeds to safely take root.
Nurse logs are biological caregivers, regenerative forces that scientists have long seen as essential to the biodiversity and health of forests. As they enrich the environment that once lifted them skyward, they illuminate the power of giving—or nursing—as a necessary element for our survival.
The caregiving lessons that nurse logs impart range from practical to philosophical, much like those I share in my book about my caregiving journey with my Mom, Grab Happy: The Serendipitous and Surprising Sides of Caregiving and Survival. Here are a few connections that feel particularly relevant to me as we enter a new year:
For me, caregiving for my Mom was an exhausting labor of love as well as a natural give and take, born out of the depths of dedication we had for each other and the stubbornness we shared. Our path together was rarely straightforward and tidy, and I wish I had taken more time to cherish the lessons she offered me near the end of her life. Still, I know that being her caregiver strengthened my own rootedness and allowed me to grow in new and surprising ways—ways that no other experience could.
In nature, nurse logs create a messy landscape. Their ever-expanding path toward decay defines their state of being and their role in their ecosystem. In fact, it is their weathering and age that give them value. Seeds nestle by lucky chance into years, even decades’ worth of nutrient-filled bark, signs of nurse logs’ hard-fought survival etched into their welcoming grooves. In their dying, they are adding to life.
As a caregiver, I tried my best to offer light and space to my Mom. Sometimes I succeeded. By allowing me to nurse her, often begrudgingly and in disgust, she gave me space I needed, but often didn’t want, to learn about my own weaknesses and strengths. The richness of her life has become a regular point of reflection for me; today, thinking of the many journeys she’d traveled before I was born serves as continuing inspiration for what remains possible for me.
On the shaded forest floor, fortunate is the seed that finds its way to settle on a nurse log, where the sparse rays of sunlight can hit and hold. Leaves, moss, needles and grasses crowd ground already darkened thanks to canopies of faraway branches, making fertile forest space a premium. Atop a weathered trunk, though, chances improve for a seed’s unimpeded access to the sunlight it needs to survive. It also gives those lucky seedlings food: distinctive species of fungi that both break down the old and nurture the new. Research shows that while ground-level fungi can choke and poison delicate seedlings, fungi that thrives in broken-down nurse logs actually supports the growth of biodiverse species.
The healthiest caregiving situations I’ve seen include a variety of support systems, each able to bolster the others while providing their own distinctive benefits. But in my Mom’s last decade of life, coordinating caregiving for her too often felt like more work to me. For years, my stubbornness and love for her made it all too easy to cling to the myth of individualism that permeates American culture: I could do it all, do it well and not miss a beat. Of course, I couldn’t. When I finally learned not only to accept support but to seek it—neither of which came naturally to me—I became a better caregiver to my Mom.
On a nurse log, no species goes it alone. While there is no single name for the plants and trees with roots that intertwine across nurse logs, their tenacity and resilience are well-documented. The log creates a mossy backdrop for a quilt of species that by their very existence strengthen the sustainability of their landscape. To borrow an analogy from conservation researchers Paul and Anne Ehrlich, species in an ecosystem function like rivets that hold an airplane wing together. The more that survive, the stronger the system.
It took me years of living as a caregiver, and then years of writing about that journey, to understand the three most important gifts it provided me with—gifts that have forever reshaped my life. Those gifts are: a firm foundation of support and nourishment; a messy, unpredictable space for learning and growth; and an opportunity for healthy surrender to our interconnectedness and interdependence.
Deep inside forests, those same gifts play out over generations. While nurse logs may spend as many years decaying as they did growing tall, at a certain point the species they nurture completely cover them. The embrace of young roots and branches weaves into a lush fairytale of a future that flourishes as the old growth disappears into its thickness. They meld into a new form of life, a form of forest regeneration, stronger and more beautiful than the sum of its old and new parts.
"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Beautiful and important piece. Thanks for sharing your wisdom.