Last night when I got home from work there was an innocent-enough looking envelope in my mailbox from Bombardi, The Tree Experts. I had contracted Mr. Bombardi a few weeks ago to cut down a tree in the back yard of the beach house where I spend my summer weekends, and the bill's arrival meant the deed had been done. The tree--which I had identified for nine years as a dogwood but was apparently a cherry--is gone.
This tree had become an architectural challenge, but for two weeks in the spring it erupted into breathtaking pink blossoms. In the summer it shaded the back porch and kitchen from an otherwise scorching afternoon sun. To me, the house is as unimaginable without that tree as it is without the roof. Every year when I was married, every mid-month of May, I would rally our two winter-worn souls out to the house so my husband and I wouldn't miss at least one sight of its bloom.
I have a distinct memory of the morning when my former husband and I first looked at the house. The dizzy, giddy, hung-over morning after we eloped. He noted then that the tree should probably be taken down before we moved in. I insisted not. It was an October day and the leaves had just begun to turn; although I couldn't have known the glory that spring would bring, I already knew that the tree belonged with the house as much as I belonged with the man who had become my husband the night before. He let it be. So we bought the house, and the tree joined our little family.
Off and on for nine years, this man who used to be my husband would remind me, gently, lovingly, that the tree I adored should really be removed. He feared it was nudging at the foundation of the house, and the back deck surrounding it was obviously beginning to bulge from the growth of its sturdy trunk. I would adamantly shut the conversation down, or tease him out of it. He always relented.
The marriage ended, as you know. Although I loved him for a long time, through great joy and unimaginable pain, our foundation, if you'll pardon the obvious, actually had ruptured. A foreshadowing of what was to become of the tree.
As much as its blooming meant to me, last spring I didn't see it; I'd had surgery and couldn't make the trip to the beach. In truth, there were relatively few weekends last summer when I made it out to the beach house, even after I'd healed and gotten clearance to travel. Being there hurt savagely. Over the years the house had become the child my husband and I had agreed not to have: It was one thing we loved and tended together; a shared, beloved project. We were going to watch it grow old together, flourishing in our care.
This year I missed the tree's bloom, too--the last time I was at the house it was just about to erupt into blossom. Mr. Bombardi must have taken it down just at the height of its pink glory. Now, of course, I won't see it again.
It was so solid and so beautiful, I believed it would outlast both my husband and I, but keep the memory of us somehow, maybe in its intricate branches. I suppose it did outlive our marriage, just not in the way we'd thought. I'm bothered that I don't even know if I have any pictures of the tree in bloom, other than those saved in my mind's eye.
This is what I want to say.
Sometimes the things that are the most dear to us, that seem absolutely permanent, are actually built on a fault line. They are destined not to last. But this doesn't mean they weren't perfect in the lifetime they had.
Maybe the next time I go to the house, I'll see that the space where there used to be a tree lets sunlight into the house in a way I'd never imagined, and maybe I'll love the new light.
Maybe I will plant flowers in sunshine where there used to be shade, and maybe I will delight in those flowers even more than that precious, blossoming tree.
Maybe the man who was my husband will stop missing the beloved house, and our life together; maybe the next time I hear his voice it will ring with joy and hope, rather than pain and loss for what no longer is.
If these things came true, I might not miss the tree after all.
