Beloved Trees

Today I was at what used to be my father's house cleaning up the tree destruction from the last few wind storms.  60 mile-an-hour winds really do some damage on older trees.  Two trees in particular took major hits - a red cedar and a pussy willow (okay, it's a shrub, but work with me).  These were two beloved trees of my father's and mine, and seeing them so damaged really cut me to the quick.

The red cedar was a tree given to me by my grandfather when I was maybe five years old.  It was the beginning of a multi-year tradition where he would bring me a potted "Christmas tree" from his farm. Just a volunteer seedling really, but all decked out for the holiday.  The tree would go in my bedroom and on Christmas Eve, Santa would leave me a few presents that I was allowed to open before anyone else got up.  It was a brilliant idea of my mother's and garnered her hours of extra sleep on Christmas morning because I was fully entertained by these presents and stayed quiet and in my room. 

Each year, the trees were saved until spring and planted throughout our yard.  Two of them remain and have grown into 40-foot specimens. Gorgeous and lush.  But so sad today with one completely topped and another missing a major limb.  The split cedar still smelling so fresh where it lay.

And the pussy willow.  This was one of Dad's all-time favorites. He would order them every year from a catalogue and try to grow them all over the yard.  I'm fairly certain his fondness for them started as a child, where he had them in his yard.  He would worry over them - the deer love to rut on them, they break easily, they don't take to the clay soil here like they do to the rich soils of Illinois, and so on.  But every year in February, he would cut a few branches, put them in a vase in a cool room of the house and force them to blossom.  So soft and so unique.

Today, as I was cutting up the remains of the willow, I noticed that the very top blossoms had started to come out.  I cut a few branches to bring them inside and had a moment talking with Dad, asking if I should get some new saplings or try something different in its place.  And just as I was getting a bit teary, thinking of the things he knew and loved that are slowly going away, a barred owl hooted just over my head as loud as can be.  (It was 3 in the afternoon so a bit out of context.)  Now I'm not saying it was Dad sending me a message to get over myself and get back to work, but it did give me pause that the "wise" owl was the one that talked to me in that moment, and not the hawk I saw a few minutes later sitting on a tree watching me work.

The funny thing is that years ago, I wrote a short story called, "I Watched Them Cut Down the Walnut Tree."  It was about the walnut tree that hung over our swimming pool, one which I hated forever because it dropped its tannin-filled leaves and nuts into the pool and I had to clean up after it.  For years, I asked my dad to cut this tree down, but he refused.  It was one of his beloved trees.  In the story, he had just passed away and my first act was to cut down this walnut tree, only I couldn't because it was like cutting off another piece of my father.  That walnut tree stands about 20 feet from the cedars and from the pussy willow that took such a big hit.  And I'm happy to report that not a limb was out of place on that damned walnut tree.  Naturally.