Weeping for My Willow Tree

Written May 26, 2008, Monday

Before we moved to Tomball, we lived in the suburbs of Houston in a fairly-sized house with a huge backyard that my brother and I spent many hot days in. Behind our fence was a field, where they built the busy street Antoine and took away our peace.

Although this new road was behind our house and extremely noisy, I never felt unsafe because standing at the back of our fence- between the road and our house- was a huge willow tree that stood taller than any other tree around it. No one else had a willow tree around us and the other willows in the neighborhood weren't quite as big as ours, so it was always very special to us. The trunk was so big that they had to build our fence around it so that it protruded out from the rest of the fence, creating a path around the tree.

Many childhood games revolved around our willow. My brother and I used to pick bark from the trunk because it looked like steak and "cooked" it on our pretend campfire that we created with sticks and limbs. Then we would walk around the path where the fence protruded and enter a new world as we rounded the trunk, as if we'd crossed a vortex that could only be entered by walking behind the tree. When our dad trimmed the huge limbs and let them drop to the ground, it became a jungle in our childlike imagination, and we'd have to fight through the willowy limbs to find our way home. It was always too big to climb (even for our cats), so we had to admire its magnificence from the bottom and respect its strength and protection.

Then we moved from that house and left our willow behind to protect all that we abandoned. At our new house there is a huge oak tree that stands at the front, but it doesn't hold the same memories and sentiment as my willow. About a week ago, we went back to our old house to check up on things and found that our willow tree had crashed to the ground, its huge limbs snapped in half and the trunk uprooted. That sturdy, magnificent protector and object of imagination had rotted on the inside and plummeted to its death. With no one to protect in the house, it had served its purpose and decided to go.

It never seemed like a weeping willow before, but now as it lays broken on the ground, it seems more solemn and weak that I ever could have imagined. The sun now shines through our backyard where the tree once stood, bringing more light (and also more noise from the street) into our backyard. Perhaps it knew that we had gone... or perhaps it was just a dying old tree that had lived out its glory days. Either way, I will surely miss my strong protector and all the magic it brought to my childhood... and even into my adult life. I am now able to climb those limbs that had always seemed so hard to reach.

R.I.P.