A Strong Old Oak

"I can see it in my head: a strong old oak with a wide scarred trunk and thousands of leaves reaching to the sun.  There's a tree in front of my house just like it.  I can feel the wind blow and hear the mockingbird whistling on the way back to her nest .  But when I try to carve it, it looks like a dead tree, toothpicks, a  child's drawing.  I can't bring it to life. I'd love to give it up.  Quit.  But I can't think of anything else to do, so I keep chipping away at it."

I picked this scene because it, if you look closely, it is just an extended metaphor.  Melinda is comparing herself to a dead tree, she can see what she wants to be. She wants to be alive. Scarred, but alive.  She is dead inside. Wanting mockingbirds, or friends, to flock to her and sing to her and stay with her, she doesn't realize that it isn't the birds that are wrong, the birds are smart enough to know that this tree isn't safe enough to build a nest in. The tree is weak and broken, and there is nothing the birds can do about that.

Melinda doesn't want to start over, she just wants to rebuild what is gone already.  She can't find the things in herself that she has lost, so she keeps chipping away at what she still has.  Wanting to give it up, she wishes she could just succumb to failure, but Mr.  Freeman keeps her going.  If you think about it, in  her reality it's the same thing.  Mr.  Freeman is keeping her from floating away, he is the rock that her family is supposed to be.  He believes in her and continues to encourage her.  He is the reason she comes through.