Sometimes Trees Blocks Our Way

I’ve been on a retreat, a sabbatical, a vacation and as most things this year, it didn’t go exactly as planned and we returned early. While there-high Uintas-maybe, truly God’s country. (For a writer and/or poet, it’s perfect country.) It was simply perfect—even the storms, the rain. The backcountry is just starting to get into autumn color. Yellow, orange, russet, and red creeping into ravines and land folds.


A vacation was just what we all needed. But as I’ve said before, life is mostly plan B. Sunday, when we arrived at the campground, I found a big screw in our trailer tire with a slow leak. We’re miles from civilization, so plans were made to travel to the nearest city Wednesday and get the tire fixed. Antique shops could be visited—a big plus for me—so not a big sacrifice, not at all.

It stormed, but Monday morning was glorious. Cool, but not too much. The sky clear, and blue, and promising. One of the things that most devastated me last summer while I was battling MPGN was the loss of my companion, Irene. A sweet cat, always near. She slept next to me and put me to sleep with her ragged purr. While I was sick she never left my side, but as if sensing how sick I was, she never pestered me for more attention. Which, of course, was her usual habit. She’s a cat.

She started having seizures right about that time. Terrible seizures that just kept getting worse. The vet couldn’t find a cause and no real promising cure, but there were a few things we could try. The thing was we had no way of doing it. I couldn’t sit up, my husband’s work demands travel; my mother is 92, my children all working too long hours. We had a heartbreaking decision that suddenly needed to be made immediately because Irene’s seizures were getting worse and more often. I made the decision to end her suffering.


I’ve second guessed myself, I’ve felt bad that I wasn’t able to go to the vet’s with her, I feel worse that I had no ashes, no nothing to honor her by. I did the best I could, put her favorite collar in a small box, and buried it in my flower garden with a stone covering the spot.
But I promised myself and Irene I would put her name on a tree up in the forest where we camp next to Annie’s.

Annie was another beloved pet—a lab, which we had to put down when she could no longer see or move. We buried Annie’s ashes up there and carved in the tree—Annie, a good dog.

I wanted to do similar with Irene, but I never got up there last summer, then in October when the doctor finally said I could go to high altitude and hike, the weather was so bad we couldn’t and wouldn’t chance the roads—bad enough when dry, horrible when wet. We do four wheeling but we try to be responsible and not tear up the roads.


So after breakfast Monday, we headed out as soon as we could to beat any stormy weather. We would drive in as far as possible, then hike. We got nearly to the spot we park the truck when this tree blocked our path.


When something blocks your way, go around, go over, go through or if necessary move the obstacle. It works in four-wheeling and in writing. With help from friends and family and a lot of determination. The road is cleared.

Life is often that way. Writing life is that way. And when we look back on all those trees and stumbling blocks we realize, that was the best of life.