You Took Something That Cannot Be Replaced.
Dear Tree Guy,
I want you to know what you took from me.
We bought our first house with a toddler and an infant – had it built in Pennsylvania and driven into Maryland on trucks. It was the cheapest way we could find to buy a house we liked. We put the whole thing together with cranes like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
Our yard was a mud pit. There were no trees to climb and, as a youth, I’d spent a considerable amount of time climbing the beautiful Sycamore near my home. I’d sit in the tree and read books. So when we decided to plant a tree for our kids, we chose a Sycamore, a real Sycamore that had to be special-ordered. At a mere 7’ tall, it was planted right outside a window where I could watch it grow. We watered it meticulously for two years to produce deep, sturdy roots, so that tree would be strong enough to withstand anything.
Our kids grew and the Sycamore grew, and they were both bigger than we could have imagined after a very fast decade. The tree grew taller than our house. It had substantial, gorgeous branches that the kids could climb – and they did. The tree blocked the view of our neighbor’s house, and gave a gorgeous, natural feel to a once barren yard.
We used the tree as a feeding station to heal a group of foxes with mange. Squirrels buried their nuts under it. Migrating birds stopped by – even tiny hummingbirds. I hung a beautiful handmade hummingbird swing from a low branch. I watched the hummingbirds fly from the feeder back into that tree, marveling at their tiny size and supersonic wings.
My oldest son is in college now. Last time he came home, he climbed nearly to the top of that tree. My youngest son is now heading for college, and he’s spent time in that tree as well.
My son and I were looking at colleges when your guys came to my house to decimate my backyard. I knew you were coming. The tree in the backyard couldn’t grow sideways forever – so I knew it would be cut down, but I didn’t want to be in town when it fell. It broke my heart.
But nothing could have prepared me for what you did to the Sycamore in the front yard. One low-hanging branch of the Sycamore brushed over our cars as we pulled into our driveway – just a tiny piece of the tree, really.
But you didn’t cut one tiny piece.
You massacred my beloved Sycamore. In minutes, without asking us, you chopped off twelve feet of enormous, beautiful, low branches. You sawed off limb after limb – seven branches, at least – before my husband saw what you were doing.
The tree we planted with love and care, the one that grew up with our children, the only tree I have loved since my childhood Sycamore, was destroyed. You chopped and chopped, WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION, and then just said, “Oops.”
My kids can’t climb the tree now; you have taken away all of the lowest branches. The handmade hummingbird swing is gone; no one even noticed its glimmering beauty as it fell with the branches you sheared. The yard next door – an eyesore at best – is now clearly visible, since the tree is only half there. I just sit at the window and cry.
You took something that cannot be replaced: you took a symbol of my children’s lives, a version of my own childhood. You destroyed and obliterated the tree we used to measure the growth of our family. Just as my last child is leaving for college, you ruined my tree, just as the tree was becoming the only thing I had left to watch grow.
YOU did that. And then you destroyed our backyard. Then you left.
You can’t make this right. You can’t bring back what you stole from me and my family. You can’t make the tree climbable again – it will never, ever be climbable again. You can’t apologize to a tree, or regrow its gorgeous, beautiful limbs. You can’t, in fact, do anything to save our beloved tree.
But you could pay for us to plant a new tree.
It wouldn’t have to be a huge tree, and it won’t grow along with my children because they will be gone. It won’t give back anything to MY family. But it is something you can do to give back to Nature.
I am not the kind of person to threaten you with court or lawsuits; I am the kind of person who thinks love is always the answer. And maybe you are not that kind of person; maybe you don’t think what you did was not a big deal. But I have lost something dear, and you have been merrily going about your days, doing nothing to make amends.
So: what kind of person are you? Are you willing to help us have another tree planted? Or are you the kind of person who is all about the money and will ignore this letter?
I will wait to find out. I will just sit here, looking out my window – for the rest of my life, looking out this window – seeing what you did, and waiting.