The Giving Tree

I found out today that I will most likely have to cut down one of the 50+ year old Silver Maples in my front yard. This news came as quite a shock, seeing as I had the arborist come over just for a tree trimming quote. I always knew there were issues with this tree, but hope and denial kept me from believing this day would ever come. After the kind man with the bad news left, I crossed the street to get a better look at my home, the one I fell in love with partly for these old trees. I tried to accept this change and imagine how it will look when that magestic tree is gone. Chad sat on the curb with me and I just sobbed. I had no idea how sad I would feel, how painful it is to choose to obliterate something so beautiful and so old. So much older than myself.

I know it's just a tree, and it is better to come down by choice than god forbid any other way. But this tree is special to me, I have a history with it. 2 1/2 years ago a drunk driver plowed through my front yard going 55+ mph and never touched his breaks. He unintentionally needled through the two closely set maples (on the left), barely missing my living room before crashing into my SUV. The driver's car ended up on my front porch and my SUV ended up in my neighbor's living room. It was a blessing that my neighbor was not in his living room and that our car was a buffer that changed the driver's course. It was also a blessing that the driver did not hit either of those trees. Afterwards the neighborhood looked on in disbelief at what had happened and how. How the trees were spared, the driver was spared, my neighbor was spared. I began to see those two trees as angelic protectors. It took a long time for that wound to heal. To sleep at night unafraid and nightmare free. Always outside my bedroom window was the memory and the protector. And now it has to go. I could not have anticipated the grief I would feel at contemplating this loss. And to have to make the decision to let it go myself. But it will be safer this way, and spring will come, and we will plant a new tree and watch it grow.