We Don’t Know If Trees Think.
This past Christmas – Shane’s last in high school, and Dylan’s first as a 21-year-old – I wanted to create a lasting memory, one that encouraged me to overlook the devastating view of missing limbs on the Sequoia tree we planted when the kids were young. So we planted another tree: our Christmas tree.
It was tough finding a tree that we could transport home to be planted – and even harder keeping the tree healthy through the season. We couldn’t take it inside and decorate it; we left it in the garage for three weeks. Then, just before Christmas, we wheeled it inside, threw a tarp down and a bucket on the living room floor, and we decorated that tree.
It was four feet shorter than any tree we’d had before. We barely put on any ornaments. But this tree was going to last forever, so it was worth having a lower-key holiday.
As soon as Christmas was over, we tossed two strings of lights into their box, tore off the limited ornaments and the garland, and we wheeled that tree back outside. Having researched for weeks, we dug the appropriately sized hole and we put the tree where it could finally let its roots expand and find a place in the earth. We cut off the burlap around its roots with the utmost care, and allowed the tree its chance to shine.
Then we left it outside for the rest of the winter. There was plenty of water but it was bitterly cold. Spring came, and our clay-based yard flooded, as it does every year. Our yard was a swamp. The tree started to turn yellow from too much water, so I wrapped a plastic bag around its roots, hoping that would help. It didn’t.
Our beloved Christmas tree continued to turn brown in early summer but Bill said, “It has new growth! It has new growth!” To Bill, this meant that the tree was doing fine. So I contacted the landscaper who said it was normal to get some browning in early summer as the seasons change. It wasn’t bad, so I let it go.
Then, quite abruptly, in late July, a gust of wind came through that took out everything in its path. Fortunately, our Christmas tree was six feet outside of its path – but our neighbor’s 100-foot tree dropped right next to it. The whole world was stunned into silence.
Within a week, the tree guys came with their saws and their rage and they took away the tree that had fallen.
We don’t know if trees think. Obviously they don’t have brains; they don’t think in any way that we recognize. But right then and there, as soon as that tree fell, our little Christmas tree started to die.
There was a heat wave, too, right after the storm – a blistering, affects-everything front – where the humidity was unbearable and the temperature regularly neared a hundred degrees. There was no rain.
Since we planted it just out of reach of the hose, I carried buckets of water and poured them on its roots. Finally, Bill attached a second hose to the first one, so we could reach the tree. We gave it water in the mornings hoping to ward off its destruction.
Our tree is still standing in our yard – but it is half brown, and half green. We don’t know what to do. We don’t know how to save it. We don’t know if we can.
With Dylan long gone and Shane leaving in the fall, my dog lying injured at my feet, I don’t know if I can bear any more loss. It’s too much for me.