“I’m going to walk.” Why was my husband telling me he was going for a walk? He went for a walk most mornings.
“When I get back,” he continued, “we are going to cut down a tree.”
“Who’s cutting down a tree,?” I asked, still not fully awake.
My husband called out the names of two neighbor men. I asked him if the guy next door would be helping and he said, “No, he wanted to, but he has an appointment this morning.”
“Where is the tree you’re going cut down,” I wanted to know.
“The tree that’s blocking the sun from my garden,” my husband said, as he went out the garage door.
Now fully awake, I walked to the window to see if I could figure out which tree he was talking about. I saw two trees, both blue spruce trees, on opposite sides of the garden. One of them had been decorated for a Christmas tree the first year my husband had lived in this house. The other tree was OUR first Christmas tree.... a tree, we had bought and decorated together during our first month of marriage. So which tree was he planning to cut down? After 20 years, I could no longer remember which one was OUR tree and wondered if he did.
As I continued to stare at the trees, sentimentality gave way to a feeling of imminent danger. Both trees had grown far above the lines that extended from the nearby utility poles. I didn’t know if they were power lines or telephone lines, but to me, this looked like a job for professionals.
When my husband returned, I told him that I was concerned about the height of the trees and how the tree might fall after it was cut.
“We’ve got it all figured out,” he told me, excitement somewhat softening the impatience in his voice, as he hurried to get outside to join one neighbor who was already stationed next to the tree with the ladder he had brought over.
Following my husband to the tree, the neighbor greeted us both with a smile, signaling that he was eager to get started on this project. My husband could barely contain his own excitement.
“Guys, I just don’t think you all should be trying to cut down such a tall tree,” I told them. At these words, the neighbor’s smile instantly died. He looked crestfallen. So did my husband.
“We’re going to use ropes,” said my husband, as he tried to reassure me. “We’ve been planning this for days. We know how to do it.”
Just then, our other neighbor arrived with the chain saw.
I said, “Okay guys, I’m going into the house to pray.”
After I went back into the house, I picked up my cell phone and walked to the window to watch the guys. I said a prayer and kept the phone in my hand just in case I needed to call 911.
Taking their places next to the ladder with the ropes, my husband and neighbor, both smiling once again, each kept a steady hand on the ladder, while the neighbor, who had brought the chain saw, climbed the ladder to begin work.
Until now, I had never seen any chain-saw work up close. I was only familiar with the sound, which to me, is one of the most annoying sounds around. But as I watched the neighbor on the ladder move the chain saw back and forth like a wand, I thought, “How graceful is that?”
My husband and the other neighbor both kept their eyes fixed on the guy with the chain saw. Each time he pointed the saw to a branch of the tree, it seemed to be moving through nothing but air, as it smoothly and seemingly effortlessly brought branch after branch sailing toward the ground. As irritating as the sound was, it was fascinating to watch the chain saw in action.
“No wonder most guys want one of these things,” I thought, as I continued to watch.
About this time, I saw our other neighbor, the one who had had an appointment, run into our yard and join the guys at the ladder. In the 20 years we had lived next door to this guy, I had never seen him so dressed up. It must have been a pretty important appointment. But he hadn’t taken the time to change out of his good clothes before joining the guys gathered around the chain saw. I wondered if he had even waited until his wife had fully stopped the car, before scurrying to get in on the action.
Finally, the tree was down and the clean-up was finished. All the guys returned home, and supposedly all the thrills of this event were over. But no...
Throughout the afternoon, whenever the phone rang, my husband would tell each caller about the tree that had been cut down that morning and each time, he seemed to relish the retelling of all the details.
When my husband’s 92-year-old father called and was told about the tree, he seemed to have lots of questions. And my husband was clearly delighted to answer each one. “Yeah...” I heard him telling his father. “It was at least 30 feet tall.”
The call from my husband’s father had come about two months before his passing, during a time when he was home between hospital stays. After my husband got off the phone, I said, “Your dad seemed to really perk up while you were telling him about cutting down that tree.”
“Yeah,” agreed my husband. “He would have liked to have helped us.”
Sometime later, I asked my husband if he knew which tree had been cut down? His tree or OUR tree? It was OUR tree.
“We should have cut ‘em both down,” he said. “The other one is shading the garden, too.”
For some reason, it really didn’t bother me that the tree was gone. That 30-foot monstrosity looked nothing like our first Christmas tree. I had to admit that the yard looked much better with it gone. And we had more yard.
“Next time, you all can cut down those ratty looking hemlocks in the backyard that the hornets build their nests in,” I told my husband. He just stared back blankly at me.
“Hmm...aren’t hemlocks challenging enough?”
B
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