But as relieved as I should be and glad for the update to our house, I am sad. I am sad and I realize something about myself that I have prided myself on being just the opposite all these years.
I’m not good with change.
Why just this morning Randy and I went to vote, but figured out that our city has changed from assigning us a place to vote to being able to vote wherever we wanted to. Not good. We had to drive 15 minutes from our house and (gasp) wait in line. I missed our normal place where they have doughnuts and we knew right where to go and where to sign.
But a tree…
I know what you’re thinking. She’s crazy. They didn’t even chop the thing down, they just trimmed it. But they trimmed the best part.
You see, there was a limb that jutted out horizontally over our yard, across the sidewalk, and almost to the street. It was a great limb! The best limb! Kids from all over the neighborhood would end up in our yard because of that limb! In that tree, under and sometimes straddled across that limb, treaties were made. Conspiracies were planned. Grand schemes of world domination were designed. Songs were written and all the secrets of the universe were wondered on.
Over the years, 10 to be exact, I’ve had to keep my mouth shut. As a mom, it’s my job to worry about people dropping out of trees. It was all I could do to march out in my front yard and declare, “Everybody out of the tree and off the limb. You’ll break your neck!”
I would even have the phone in my hand and ready to dial 911. I had a Google page ready to go of how to splint a broken arm or leg. I just knew someone was going down and it would be in my yard and a lawsuit would be pending.
But none of the sort ever happened. Just pure summer fun- rope or Nerf gun in one hand and a Popsicle in the other.
The four of us stood in the front yard yesterday and mourned the limb. We delivered our eulogies and lamented that the tree would never be the same. I half expect there to be flowers on my front porch and a peach cobbler or two as the now teenage kids in the neighborhood pay their respects.
The kids haven’t been in that tree for quite some time now. It’s not that the limb provided us with anything useful. It covered up our yard and caused us to get a warning from the city if we didn’t trim it back so people wouldn’t run into it on our sidewalk.
But time moves on and the limb outlived its usefulness. I think Shel Silverstein was on to something there.
So long limb. Maybe you’ll be some ground cover in one of our city parks or mulch in a flower bed. Wherever you go, thanks for all the fun.
