Pines and Spruces

A week ago Sunday my husband the horticulturist had to do something he didn’t want to do–though he knew he had to.  In fact, the results of his action were rather painful to us both.  He had to cut down two large red pines in our front yard–that, after taking down three towering spruce trees that stood parallel to the pines on the eve of the first snow late last fall.  Five fortysome-year-old evergreens–gone.

Their demise was at the hands of the drought in the summer of 2012.  Plant life everywhere suffered that summer.  We watered young trees, shrubs, and perennials nearly every day to keep them alive.  The sandy soil gulped up our well water with relish, only to have the wilting plants begging for more in a day or so.  But we neglected the large, older trees as we let the lawn go dormant and brown.  Surely their roots are deep enough.  Surely it will rain…soon.

Last spring the damage was evident.  The spruces were in the worst condition with only a small area of green on the top of one and a few thrusts of new growth in a feeble attempt to save its life.  But soon they were three brown towers of brittleness.  I was more hopeful for the pines–each had places of damage but also had whole branches of green needles, and we had the rain that helped return the plant world to a more normal existence.  As the summer wore on, the closest pine lost its greenness.  Maybe the other two will make it.  I held onto that until, well, until Chris got out the chainsaw last Sunday and started the cut on the middle tree.  The remaining pine is sparse, battle-worn, and has a dead leader.  But I am optimistic.

The loss of these majestic trees left a huge hole in our landscape.  Whenever I am doing dishes at the sink, the new view shakes me a little; like, wait a minute–something’s wrong, something important is definitely missing.  The mature evergreen trees were the reason we so loved our front yard, and we had great respect for all the winters and droughts they had endured.

The huge hole in the landscape is a mirror and reminder of the huge hole in the landscape of our family.  For twenty-seven years we have loved the look of our life with one, then two, then three kids. We measured our time, not with rings of growth, but by inches on the door jamb, by books read, by art projects hanging on the walls, by hours of homework, by events and concerts and games and holidays and laughs and….  Then one, then two, and now the third, our son, has left for college.  I still held onto the girls, through college and even after, as they came home for Christmas and sometimes for summer and still needed help with a few things–and then, out comes the chainsaw of real jobs with health insurance in states far away…..

We are doing something we didn’t want to do, though we know we have to do it.  It is painful for both of us.  The landscape we bought into and nurtured and loved has changed.  I still see the huge hole, but I have fleetingly admitted that I can now see certain things that I didn’t see very well before.  It opens up unexplored possibilities.  What new things can we plant and nurture and grow?  I am optimistic.