Weeping for Wyatt's Willow

Nature has seen in its infinite wisdom to remind me that nothing is permanent, not even when it is carefully nurtured and unconditionally loved.  It is a lesson I am not unfamiliar with.

Wyatt's Willow, which is just shy of ten years old, as is my boy, has been reduced to a small stump in our backyard.  The last few years have been difficult for the willow.  It suffered sun damage, bug infestation as a result of the damage which could not heal and a final insult - woodpeckers.  My husband wanted to just cut it down but I insisted that an arborist examine the tree and make an education determination as to the poor willow's fate.  My husband was right, our willow was too damaged to stand any longer.  We risked having it fall towards our house in a wind storm and that was just unacceptable.  So now it is gone.  We are only waiting to have the stump grinded out and then it will only exist in my memory and photographs.  Just like Wyatt.  Ugh.  

Of course this would happen just weeks before Wyatt's 10th birthday.  Of course my hormones are all wonky from being in the weaning process for our littlest girl.  Of course Eli's little pee gee hydrangea tree had died last spring (as an aside, his new hydrangea tree, quick fire I believe, is showing many signs of life thankfully).  I'm left throwing my hands in the air and my fate to the wind.  These trees and their gravestones are what I have left to care for.  The gravestones are inanimate objects but the trees, the trees, they change and grow and show awesome beauty and strength throughout the year.  They are what I really treasure.  

To watch Wyatt's tree come down after ten years has been very sad and frankly, something I have pushed to a far away place in my mind.  The decision of what to do next has also been very difficult and sad.  Wyatt's weeping willow was just too perfect.  A big beautiful weeping tree to represent our tears shed for Wyatt.  Due to the tree's health issues we don't want to plant another weeping willow and then take a chance that another ten or so years down the road we will have to say goodbye to that one too.  So we've had to choose another type of tree and this decision has been far less emotional and much more rational.  There are hardiness, pest and disease considerations which take away a lot of the "specialness" to me.  But, just like saying goodbye to Wyatt on a rainy morning almost ten years ago, we have no other choice.

Baby's Day in the Snow

Yesterday we were all finally well enough and the temperatures broke through sub-zero so we had a day in the snow! At seven and a half months pregnant I was crawling through and sitting in the snow, probably at least a couple feet worth, building snow forts for my two oldest daughters. We have a maple tree in the backyard whose lowest branches are almost unreachable to me but yesterday I had to duck to get beneath its firm branches. I dug, cracked out snow bricks and stacked walls of pure white. It was about freezing outside for a change so neither the baby nor I caught a chill. I can only wonder what the the baby thought about being submitted in close proximity to so much cold. By the time we got inside I was literally wet and immersed in memories of stripping off similar, but much smaller sized, winter clothing throughout my childhood.

While digging through the snow I uncovered a perfectly wrinkled brown leaf which appeared to be from the willow. It gave me a chance to think about my garden and what I will plant this year, how I will introduce this new baby into our yard through the textures and colors of my flowers. It also gave me a chance to reflect on how far I've come since losing Wyatt. We moved into this house just a month after he was born. The yard was minimally landscaped and one of the first things we did was to plant his willow tree and make a space for flowers beneath. At the time I knew almost nothing about plants, not out of ignorance, but on purpose. My parents had beautiful flowers throughout our yard as I grew up, however my memories on the subject revolve around the endless hours we spent traversing from nursery to nursery looking for the perfect plants. It was with that conscious rejection that I made my first trip as an adult to a nursery and carefully selected plants for Wyatt's garden. It has been a project seven, going on eight, summers in the making. Each year it is more abundant and beautiful, just as I imagine my son would be. I imagine this year I will spend alot of time working in my flower gardens, aspiring to capture pieces of beauty which have slipped through my fingers.