I think for all of us that live up north, volunteer trees
poke their heads up all over your property. Often times in gardens or flower
plots and you are constantly pulling them out or cutting them down. Its just
part of nature and my yard is no exception. But last year, down on the
shoreline, in the rocks that I use to rip rap my shoreline, there was a
surprise. A tree started growing amidst the rocks where seemingly there is no
soil. At first I was going to go in there and pull it out but then thinking it
wouldn’t survive the winter, I just let it be. This spring it was back and when
it leafed out I was surprised to see it was a sugar maple and a nice tree.
There are none of them around as far as I know. The seed must have washed in
from somewhere else on the lake. I planed to let it grow.
I remember a bible verse that said, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the
heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.” My little great grandson was
born this year and right now he and I are the Alpha and the Omega of my family.
It seemed so ironic to me that his birth seemed to correlate with this tiny
tree on my shoreline. For some elusive reason this baby boy and that little
tree came into my life at the same time. I will never live to see either one of
them grow up but it is my hope that as the years go by and they both grow in
stature that I will be able to attach some significance to this and share my
story with him or his parents.
At some point I will have to relinquish this home and move
to something more accommodating. I try not to think about that but it’s always
in the back of my mind. At that time, the tree and the house will belong to
someone else and its significance will be lost. Maybe they’ll cut it down or
maybe-- and hopefully by that time-- it will be too nice to cut down and it
will be a beautiful shade tree. If that is the case I want my great grandson to
know it’s there and to know why it’s there. If nothing else, for him to come to
this lake, get into a boat, anchor out front and bond a little.
Joyce Kilmer wrote a poem about a tree that I learned in
grade school a long, long, time ago. He wrote, “I think that I shall never see
a poem as lovely as a tree.” The last verse said, “Poems are made by fools like
me but only God can make a tree.” Maybe by that time he will be old enough to
realize that both of them are a product of Gods creation. That a foolish old
man wanted to leave him something that would grow and change with him.
Something that he hoped would remind him of this special place and of that same
old man, who by that time will only be a memory.
A few years ago I went back to my hometown and the place
where I grew up. It’s now just a parking lot. The house was never much, even
way back then, but love and companionship from a caring family made up for the
rotting boards and windows. I stood in the middle of this gravel lot and tried
to remember what it once looked like and then out of the corner of my eye I
spotted a Lilac bush. It was all that remained but for me it was all I needed
to bring the picture back. I stood by that bush and cried for a while. Cried
sadly for what time had done to my family but also happily that the bush was
still there. Maybe that’s what brought all of this on today.
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