Better or Worse?

From ‘The Resident Tourist: Otah Tree’ by Troy Chin in ‘Liquid City: Volume One’:

Mint: It’s funny. Don’t you think, Troy?
Troy: What is?
Mint: If I hadn’t come here, I’d still believe that my tree’s standing alive. Would that have been better or worse?
Troy: I… I’m not sure… (In the six months since my return to Singapore, I’ve visited a very small handful of my old haunts… I don’t because… I can’t answer that question.)

It would have been better
to treasure the tree as it was in the past
to not be attached to the tree’s eventual changes,
to know the truth of the tree now.