The Sapling Tree

Once upon a time, there lived a woman who was so bereft that she removed her heart and planted it in the ground. She planted it under a sapling tree.
 
Without a heart, the woman could no longer distinguish hot from cold. She ventured outside in all sorts of weather, regardless of the rain, snow, or boiling heat.
 
Without a heart, the woman didn’t feel tethered to any one place. Nowhere was her home. She wandered across the world, never pausing for very long and never missing any of the places she had visited.
 
Without a heart, the woman had trouble recognizing faces. Everyone looked the same to her — men, women, or children. There was no one she loved, no one she took pleasure in seeing.
 
Without a heart, the woman became a ghost.
 
One day she found herself standing before the same sapling tree. “I have lost much since I removed my heart,” the woman said to herself. “But look at this tree! Look how tall it stands. Look how colorful its leaves. Clearly it has been nourished by my heart. Clearly my heart has served a purpose.”
 
But she said the same before any tree.