Mourning Loss

No damage to the house, no one got hurt, but my heart is so heavy and achy. More than once I thought how loved it was this summer, how grateful I was. I’m trying to remember how nice it was, not that it’s gone.

The early winter storm had us worried, but even when I saw the few broken branches I thought we’d weathered the storm well. I trudged out to the little Japanese maples and shook the icey snow from their branches, but could do nothing for the locust. It wasn’t until we started cleaning up and cutting the broken branches from the roof we saw the real damage. Fractures ran through most of the main limbs and ultimately we had to cut the branches off. Even at the last, we hoped to save it, but the wood was too brittle and the main limbs fractured deep into the trunk.

Years ago, we had a large sycamore tree in that spot. Our backyard was shady and cool all summer, but the leaves and balls were a nightmare to clean up and eventually, the tree grew too big for our tiny yard. After we removed the tree and bored out the stump, we planted a linden tree.

Two trees and three years later we still didn’t have a living tree in that spot and no shade in the future. So we changed our choice of tree and bought a locust. From the start, I loved that tree. It had such a Zen way of growing, not symmetrical, but graceful and pleasing. I talked to it as I gardened beneath it, planting hostas and daylilies, spring bulbs and Japanese Irises.

Then when I got sick, we took the garden out. I talked to the tree of my trouble and plans as we planted grass and the tree took command of the back yard. We put in a small piece of cement and a glider to while away a summer afternoon on. We sat there many an evening, relaxing and talking.

As we cleaned up and loaded the truck, I felt physically sick and sad. We are of the age we will likely never see the benefit of a new tree. We wondered if we should even replant. Anything we plant could just as easily be taken out after we no longer own the house. Was it worth the cost, the trouble, the time? We know our time in this house is short. Too many stairs for us to think we can stay here as we get older.

As we discussed all this, I thought of those similar thoughts I’ve had about this writing journey I’ve been on. Why still struggle and try? Am I wasting time better spent elsewhere? By the time I finally get a book published, if ever, I’ll be ?? years old. I’ll never have time to get all I want to write done. Any older writer out there likely thinks this, I imagine. Likely those thoughts are not so different for that new mom, or busy lawyer or whoever. Is there time? How can I write as long each day as a published writer needs to with all my other responsibilities?

But this rebellious, audacious voice comes to me, then and now. Why not? Who knows how it will turn out? Maybe, you will have only one book published, maybe you’ll never get everything you want to write written, maybe that tree will never be big enough for you to enjoy its shade. But maybe, you will. If you do what you can now.

In any case, you’ll be there as it grows, you’ll have some small little part in what it gives to the world through its life time. You might write something that touches just one person’s heart. You’ll write through your journey and maybe, that’s all. But that’s more than if you never tried.

I think…I know I’d rather my life end with me trying, looking and stepping forward. It’s enough.