Grieving a Tree

When I first visited the house I would eventually buy, my first thought was how much I loved the gigantic oak in the front yard. It was impossibly tall, dappled the sunlight over the lawn and flowers, gracefully arched over the entire house.

To me, there really is nothing more lovely than a tree.

I didn’t even really mind all the leaves in the fall. Well, to be honest, I hired Tina’s crew of juvenile delinquents each year to do the raking for me. I’m as lazy as the grave.

So, imagine my sadness when I noticed a split in the trunk the other week. I called in the tree doctor and after a lot of careful evaluation and examination another split was discovered on the other side and the verdict was not good. Although it was a perfectly healthy, probably 150 year old tree, that could easily outlive me – it was failing. The fear was that once the leaves came in the wind would start to twist the tree and put enough stress on the trunk that the tree would fall over…demolishing either my house or the one next door. The only decision we could make was to take it down.

It actually hurt my heart to see the crew sawing off all the branches and feeding them into the chipper. I finally had to just leave – I couldn’t watch any more. It makes me sad to think that something God created back when the area was nothing but a farmer’s field could be so quickly reduced to dust.

I had to leave the afternoon of the chopping for a business trip so the first time I saw my now naked front yard was at night after a long flight home. I couldn’t believe how the whole approach had changed. It was a lot brighter (very strange) and you could definitely see more of the back yard and the neighbor’s house (not overly excited by either of these developments).

The tree bordered the driveway so I always had to take extra care when backing out of the garage to accommodate it. I instinctively made the same twist this morning and felt bad all over again when I realized that the driveway is now totally open. Sniff.

Jeff says that we will do something new this spring to commemorate the loss. I know that eventually I will forget what it was like when the tree was there. I hope not.