This has been a year of farewells.
Dad dying.
Son number one off to college.
Son number too growing up fast.
A body being quirky.
But through it all I've had a friend, a ponderosa pine tree.
Odd?
Maybe.
But I visited it as frequently as any bestie would, walking the requisite three miles up apex trail to sit in its low branches, breathing in the vanilla-orange-pine scent of its bark beneath an umbrella of cones and needles.
Today I bundled up and hiked an hour for our visit only to discover that a fire had blazed along a small stretch of trail in my absence, taking my tree with it.
I stood beneath blackened branches with tears on my face. Tears for my tree, for my dad and all the changes in a life. Not because there’s anything wrong with change or unnatural about fires, both are necessary and contribute to the health of the system. No I grieved because my friend was gone and I would miss it. Because this tree of all the trees on the trail had become dear to me. Why? Why does anything become dear to us? Because we pause in our self absorbed humaning long enough to really see it and appreciate the life living it.
My tree will decompose and feed the earth and the cycle of life will continue, but I will remember it. The scent of its bark, the arc of its branches and the way my heart leapt when I rounded the bend in the trail to catch sight of a familiar evergreen against a bright blue sky.
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