Requiem for an Elm Tree

Forty years ago, we moved the boys, the elder a precocious six and the younger a cuddly three, from an apartment with a lady downstairs who pounded on her ceiling, our floor, when the boys would move about as boys do.

Our new house was just a few blocks from our old home, close enough to my mother-in-law, who lived alone, that we could be there in seconds if she needed us. The house is a tiny Cape Cod, and the boys’ rooms were on the second floor, more like a finished attic. But still, the house was home, and my bride and I smiled when we heard the thunder of their footsteps above us.

The little house has a big deck that looks onto a large backyard framed by a group of trees, an oak and an elm among them.

The yard was hard used! Wiffle ball bats thumped, footballs were tossed and sometimes caught. The trees provided leaves in the fall to rake and jump in, and twigs to make arms for the snowmen and women that would appear and disappear in the heat of the winter sun. The yard was also the scene of most of the boys’ birthday celebrations. One in particular was memorable, when our younger decided to show his friends his tree-climbing ability and ended up at the ER with a mild case of bark in the eye.

It wasn’t the first visit with his mother and me with our hearts in our mouths, but there were so many more joyous memories to think of.

The boys grew up, and graduation parties and weddings were added to the backyard festivities. Later, with the boys out of the house, Norma and I would entertain our friends on the deck beneath the shade of the oak and elm trees.

Then she got sick.

So as not to disturb her, I would take my coffee out onto the deck and watch her sleeping through a baby monitor that a friend from the support group I attended had suggested I buy. I would sit and write about the past and the present, about the feelings that tore through me and left my insides out.

All under the watchful eyes of the oak and the elm trees.

In the spring this past year, I saw the elm tree’s leaves turn yellow and begin to fall. I did some research and saw that the symptoms matched those caused by elm disease. The trees are on city property, so I got in touch with the city.

Months went by, with the tree now bare except for the invasive vines crawling all over it. Eventually, I got a visit from the city and the tree company that will do the job. The tree is ancient and a good three stories high. I guess the city wasn’t equipped to take it down themselves.

And so I began to think about all the memories that old elm tree and I shared.

The last was of folding tables groaning with food and hundreds of folks coming to hug me and regale me with stories about my bride.

So when the job is done, I am thinking about having a gathering to memorialize this witness to forty years of our lives. Forty years, mostly in celebration, with tents and tables full of food, Slip ’N Slides, tree climbing and skinned knees, and some moments filled with a grief so deep there are no words to describe it.

One more gathering beneath the open sky, to acknowledge the witness to the many memories this family shared.