Yesterday I hugged an old red maple, the matriarch of our back yard. Or rather, I hugged the last remaining trunk after the rest had been loaded onto a truck and driven off to be ground to dust and laid to rest somewhere that isn’t here. Even on its side, the giant, hollow slice of trunk attached to broken roots the size of wrestlers’ arms was a good head taller than me, impossible to get my arms around. So I did my best to rub my hands along the hollow edges of its weathered core and to whisper goodbye and thank-you, standing by its side.
There are neighbors my age who remember climbing this tree when it was young and others, nearly middle aged, who played with (and in one case, buried) toys in the maple’s wider shadow. We, the tree’s last caretakers, coddled it as best we could these past two years, and planted its future replacement nearby so the tired and scarred old thing would know that it could - some day - let go.
And then, after last week’s rain, the maple dropped to the soggy ground with less of a thud and thunder than one would expect - a quiet giving up the ghost. And, as if it had time to think about its landing, as if it still cared about this place, this yard, the tree’s biggest, longest, ivy-tangled branches landed on either side - within inches - of its replacement as if to cuddle and protect it…. or to pass the torch. So, too, the trunk itself made sure to miss the delicate spring garden just emerging amid its roots - a precious gift in life, a miracle in dying.
Just last week I watched two red-tailed hawks explore the tree as if looking for a place to build a nest. Blue jays and Carolina wrens crossed the yard to flit endlessly among its branches; squirrels picked at the red buds optimistic about yet another spring; a mama fox climbed some eight feet up the trunk to rest on the maple’s open arms and watch the yard. The animals will miss this tree. And I will too. Even as my eyes quickly adapt to its absence, even as the birds find other trees in which to build their nests, even as the fox finds a safer place to birth her pups. Time passes. Things change. Life goes on. But there is a moment when it’s right to mourn what’s lost and to take the time to hug and thank a tree.