Pruning: Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

 

Randy thought he heard thunder during the night Sunday into early Monday morning. We both heard the wind as a front blew through and rattled windows and the attic door.

But when he went out to leave Monday morning, he discovered that the "thunder" he'd heard was likely the cottonwood by our mailbox ... crashing to the ground.

May she rest in peace.

We knew she was failing. But the green at the tippy-top of the tree gave us hope that she'd survive a few more years. Rain or shine, sleet or snow, she stood guard in our south driveway.

The cottonwood has witnessed a lot of comings and goings from the farmstead where we've lived since 1985. Just a few weeks after we moved into this home, that cottonwood witnessed us bringing home our first baby, Jill. It was a quiet sentinel 2 3/4 years later when we brought Brent home. It witnessed their wobbly attempts to ride bikes on dirt roads, their first bus rides to school and "saw" more than one 4-H calf halter broke. It waved goodbye as they left for college and greeted them when they come back home. It is our "witness" tree on the County Line.

Dorothy, who grew at this farmstead, says she doesn't remember a time that the tree wasn't standing tall at the south driveway. She estimates that the old cottonwood was at least 100 years old.

The road patrol driver asked about cutting her down. But while there was still green, we were reluctant to let her go. The wind made the decision for us.

 I will miss her.

One of my email devotionals, New Every Morning, featured excerpts from the book, Rhythms of Growth by Linda Douty, all last week. Each day, the devotional ended with this little verse:

Prayer for the Week

Thank you, God, for sun and showers
Thank you for each lovely flower
Thank you for each stately tree
Through all these, you speak to me.
—A Gardener’s Prayer

"Thank you for each stately tree."
Indeed.

I was behind reading them, and I didn't read last Saturday's devotional until yesterday morning:

Sometimes we feel that our lives (or our very selves) are being pruned without our consent. Life’s unexpected transitions and tragedies can cut us off at the knees without warning. Pain can prune us of innocence and illusion and teach us lessons we often don’t learn from pleasure.

Just as in the garden, pruning makes us stronger, not weaker. Both pruning and being pruned spur us to new growth.

—Linda Douty, Rhythms of Growth: 365 Meditations to Nurture the Soul (Upper Room Books, 2014)

Reading that devotional couldn't have been more appropriate after I'd been outside taking my final photos of one of my favorite trees. 

The question at the end of the devotional was this: When have you experienced pruning that ultimately spurred you toward growth?

It's something to think about, especially with Covid-19 and some other hard and sad things that happened this past week.

I suppose we're just as resilient as our mailbox, which survived the tree's demise. And I learned something new about the mailbox, too.

Randy said that Katherine - the former owner - told him that her husband, James, constructed the mailbox to move by rolling on a cement base. He got tired of the postal service wanting the mailbox in a different location, so he came up with a unique solution to make the job easier.

There's probably a metaphor for life there, don't you think? Roll with the unexpected changes? Don't be afraid to move?

Advice from a tree: 

Stand tall. Go out on a limb.      

Remember your roots. 

Drink plenty of water. 

Enjoy the view. 

Bear Grylls

Back in a 2013 blog post, I had this to say about our mighty old cottonwood:

A faithful sentinel welcomes me home.

The tree at the end of the driveway is like an old friend. 

The old cottonwood opens its arms in greeting ...

as the fluff of its white "cotton" drifts along the ditches in the spring ...

as it stands strong when the January wind rattles the ice-covered branches ...

as sunlight kisses the fall leaves with gold ...

 

and as birds make their nests among the bright green leaves

 and their song joins the music of the south wind ...


Thanks, old friend. I'm going to miss you.

We are already talking about planting a new tree.

Someone's sitting in the shade today 

because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

- Warren Buffet

***

Decorating our mud pies with cottonwood fluff - 1963 - From left, Lisa, me and Darci playing in the mud.

 More on my lifelong love of cottonwoods can be found here.