Have you ever felt unsettled, but couldn’t figure out why? I was feeling that way last week, and then two things occurred. I’ll tell them not in order of importance, but in the order they happened.
First, the 230-year-old Oak tree in front of our house was condemned.
The diameter is not much smaller than my car and the branches touch the sky. It’s been making burls and the base looks like critters are making nests, so I emailed the DCR. A few days later there was a young man in the driveway, tying an orange ribbon around the tree and spray painting it with orange blotches. It was pouring that day, so I grabbed an umbrella and ran out to ask him what the ribbon and spray paint meant – even though I knew. He said the tree had to come down, that a major storm could knock it over.
I’ve been admiring this tree, and its slightly younger (220 or so years old) companion on the other side of the driveway, most of my life. From childhood, every time my parents would drive by the house I would wish to live there someday. Thirty years ago I moved in and have loved watching the squirrels run up and down the trees and leap over the branches. You can time sunsets to their squawks as they’re climbing up to their nests.
Today DCR has a crane in our driveway to prune the younger tree, which they told me is healthy but needs some care. Later this week or next, DCR will bring an even bigger crane and take down the other tree I thought would outlive me.
The second thing happened last weekend. A million years ago I worked at a software company where the women had a special bond. As we started leaving the company for sunnier shores, we began meeting for a quarterly dinner – now a lunch since some of us (me) can’t drive at night.
But over the past 30 years or so, as humans do, some of our group have lost touch. Covid didn’t help. Some found our way back, and some didn’t.
I opened Facebook last weekend, and the first post that popped up was that one of our number, whom we hadn’t seen in a few years, had died that morning. There were frantic phone calls and texts to each other trying to find out what had happened, and eventually her family posted her obituary. Alzheimer’s had taken her, which made our hearts break, and explained why we hadn’t heard from her.
She was one of those people who are so vibrant you can’t imagine them not being there. This was a woman who made a point to be cheerful even when she wasn’t having a good day. She wore crazy costumes to celebrate holidays – I have vivid memories of her hopping down the hall dressed as the Easter Bunny, dancing as a leprechaun, handing out chocolates as Mrs. Claus, trailing laughter everywhere. She gave all of us permission to be a little silly and have a good laugh. She was also whip smart but didn’t feel the need to flaunt it. She was a good and trusted listener.
Now I understand why that anxious feeling came over me. So today I sit, typing while I look out the window at a tree that has stood since the 1700s, thinking about a friend who had a truly life-enhancing personality. Tomorrow we’ll go to her funeral to pray for her together. Then I’ll brace for the sound of chainsaws and think of what to plant in the tree’s memory.
XO Brenda