Stories About Trees
/We bought a seven-foot potted Ficus tree sometime in 2009 after we moved into our house in Woodland Park. It was beautiful. We kept the tree in a large pot on a flat tray with wheels on it so we could move it inside and outside. We moved it into the house every fall, and back outside every spring. The tree grew very tall, so tall we had to trim the top each year so it wouldn’t scratch the twelve-foot ceiling.
Once inside our house, the tree sat in our library behind my big brown chair. I loved it even though, like all Ficus trees, it dropped leaves into my lap and onto the pages of my book all winter long. It felt cozy and warm and inviting to sit under a tree, like there was a source of life behind my chair.
During the warm season the tree sat in its pot on the back porch, mostly sheltered from the wind (although we had to stand it back up several times each season). We often pulled it out from under the porch when it rained.
That very first spring of 2009 a dove built a nest in the tree, and since it was right in front of a window, we could watch the progression from eggs to chicks to birds. We could see them, but they couldn’t see us. The doves used that same nest year after year, adding more sticks each season.
Here’s the sad part. Last fall 2021, we waited one night too many before moving our tree inside. It froze. We were heartbroken, but we moved it inside anyway hoping it was only mostly dead. We moved it back outside in the spring, giving it a chance to recover, but there was no joy. It just dried up and got more brittle every day.
And yet the doves still returned to the nest. They sat on eggs amid all the dead branches and brown leaves. We knew the tree was gone, and I knew it was my job to dispose of the remains, but I waited until the doves finished raising their new family.
Friday, November 4th, I loaded the tree into the bed of my pickup and took it to the city drop-off for yard waste. It was time. Its sad condition had haunted me long enough.
I saved the nest, however, as a reminder. Maybe I’ll stick it in a new tree and see if the birds use it again.
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Mary Reynolds Thompson quoted Willa Cather in her book, Reclaiming the Wild Soul, “I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.”
Our Ficus tree never complained about our forgetfulness. It kept most of its leaves and branches, even though brown and brittle, all last winter and spring, seeming to delay its final transition.
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I often ask people where they feel most at home. The usual answers center around familiar places and familiar roles.
One of the places I used to feel at home was in my hammock in the backyard under the shade of a big honey locust tree. I loved to lay in that hammock with the Sunday paper across my chest and sleep while I gently swung myself by pulling on the slender rope tied to the porch post. I could swing myself and sleep at the same time. It was wonderful and peaceful, and it was home.
Unfortunately, I had to cut that tree down. It was attacked by bores in the summer of 1999 and by spring of 2000 it finally gave up the fight to stay alive. It broke my heart to lose this tree.
It had a trunk of eighteen inches; Cyndi and I planted it years before when it was a 1" stick. It was the biggest and oldest impression I'd ever made on the actual earth. I loved that I planted something that seemed so significant. I was inspired by that tree.
I thought I was more in charge of my environment. I expected the things I did to stay done. I don't enjoy short-term fixes and it hurt to realize my efforts had been so temporary.
I borrowed a chainsaw and cut the tree down. I was finally convinced the tree would never come back to life and I was at peace with the loss, so I calmly spent an afternoon converting the tree into a stack of firewood.
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One of my favorite Bible passages is about trees, from Psalm 1.
He (a godly person) will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.
This passage marks a significant progression in my life. In 1999, I wrote in the margin of my Bible, “Lord, I want to be well planted.” In 2014 I added, “Lord, I want to be a planter of trees.”
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“I run in the path of Your commands, for You have set my heart free.”
Psalm 119:32
