Every Albertan remembers the grade one tradition where your child is given a sapling to take home and plant. Both my children received one. Both planted their little tree in a chosen place in our yard. My daughter cared for her tree for a limited amount of time, moving on to her next project and the tree perished.
Zane was different. He would come home each day and nurture his tree. He covered it with a large coffee tin so the heavy snows would not break it. He talked to it, sprayed it, and fertilized it and it grew into a majestic white spruce that we hung feeders and tiny houses on to welcome the birds and squirrels. After Zane passed, we hung Christmas ornaments and tied ribbons with wishes on it in his honor. The tree was more than a tree; it was a connection to the love my son had and shared.
At a recent community block party, our old neighbor told us of how the new owners were caring for our house in a way that we would feel good about. He went on to say how they had opened the yard by removing a few of the trees and it looked great. “Which ones?”, I asked. As he began to describe the locations of the trees they had removed, I kept pleading in my head, “not Zane’s, not Zane’s” …but it was Zane’s. I glanced at my husband as the tears came and whispered to him, “I just can’t…” and I turned and left, leaving him to tell our neighbor why his wife was a sudden mess.
Our neighbor apologized and hugged me. How was he to know. It was ok. But it wasn’t. I went home that evening and cried myself to sleep. There is nothing I could have done, there was no moving this massive evergreen. The house was not ours any longer. I understand. But I don’t like it. How ironic this tree was roughly Zane’s age before its life was chopped down. It was another thing lost that was my sons. It was another reminder that things have changed forever. It was another catalyst to bringing my grief to the forefront.
When things like this happen, we need to find hope that it will be ok. Even when we know it isn’t. We can look at loss from the dark or the light side. I tend to look at it from the dark first. I give myself time to sit with the pain, permission to feel mad and sad and hopeless. And then when my tears have subsided, I look at it from the light side. And if there isn’t one, I try to create one.
With Zane’s tree, I have decided to believe that somewhere on the other realm, Zane has a space that he adores and that he rejuvenates in, and that spot now has his beautiful beloved tree. Beside him. With all the wishes we had tied on it and all the admiration we have for him clinging to each needle so that he can see, touch, and feel how very much he is loved and missed.
That is so terribly sad Janica, and unnecessary to have cut the tree down.