I
n this bittersweet season of colorful leaves, dying and letting go, I am moved to tell you a little story.
My childhood home on Grey Cloud Island was in the country, on an acre-and-a-half lot. There were many trees on the property—in high school I did a biology project identifying “50 Trees in My Yard”—and most of them were special to me. But one tree, a mature maple, became a family and neighborhood favorite. It was a striking tree, standing regally at the edge of the driveway, a boundary between our yard and the field beyond. My mother particularly loved the tree, and visitors often remarked on it, for they encountered its splendor as they pulled up to the house, and again as they left.
And it was a magnificent tree. Over the decades that my family lived there, it grew taller and lusher in its broad, rounded crown. Its stately presence was hard to ignore whenever we drove in or out. We praised its strength and beauty aloud over and over; I think we just felt lucky that it graced our lives. Its canopy provided a shady place in the summer where my Grandpa Larson parked his car for long visits. Or a shady spot for a glass of lemonade in the heat of the day. In the fall it was a glorious blaze of orange and red, or sparkling with yellow. (So many leaves to rake! But we forgave the tree because they were so beautiful.) Neighbors who drove by on the road also admired and remarked on the tree. The workers from Bailey Nursery, who owned the adjacent field, were so impressed with the tree that they requested some of its numerous seeds so they could raise its offspring in their nursery.
Our maple in the 1970’s, photo taken by R Peek or C Peek
When my parents prepared to sell the house at the end of 2002, after living there for 46 years, I created our family’s ritual of farewell. The maple tree had become iconic enough to us that I incorporated one of its branches for the last part of the ceremony. After all, when my parents arrived, in their prime with young children in tow, the tree too was in its prime, and they had lived and aged together. Once we had spent considerable time moving throughout the house and yard, telling stories and saying goodbye, we all put our hands on the branch, acknowledged the tree, and expressed gratitude and blessings for our homeplace. Then we placed the branch as an offering on wood laid out in the fireplace, so that when the new owners lit their first fire, our blessings would be released into the air.
My mom died in 2005, my dad in 2008. In 2008 we returned for the first time since the sale to scatter some of my parents’ ashes on Grey Cloud Lake. The new owners allowed us to visit, and we were startled and sadly touched to discover that our beloved maple tree was dying. Had the tree simply reached is natural lifespan—though a maple like this can live 100 years or more? Or was the tree heartbroken, having become as attached to my family as we had been to the tree?
Like all my beloved dead, the maple tree (and my childhood home) lives on in my heart.
Though it’s nice to think that maybe, somewhere, one of its children is flourishing nearby.
.
