35+ Years to Mature - Mere Hours to Destroy

The aftermath of last weekend's tree drama was very sad.  In order to ensure that no property damage or injury would result, the sad consensus was that our beautiful blue spruce, planted in days of yore when my sons and I were all much younger, would have to come down.  And so, with a great gulp, many sighs and general mourning, arrangements were made for the dastardly, but necessary, deed.

This was how matters stood as of last Sunday.  Branches and chunks of wood were piled high, remnants of the half that had fallen, badly frightening the neighborhood on Saturday night.

Unfortunately, what was left standing after Saturday's freakish windstorms was much too likely to fall victim to other such occurrences.

The serious cutting down began Tuesday morning. 

In a mere couple hours, only a trunk surrounded by many branches remained.

The sad demise of a proud monarch didn't take long.

The removal work began in earnest on Tuesday afternoon.

Heavy machinery made lifting chunks of the thick trunk look like child's play.

The debris disappeared altogether - literally in moments.

The house literally looks naked without the tree.  My renter says that she almost needs sunglasses when she goes into the living room.

The next day, even the stump was removed and ground up.  Now there is nothing but bare earth in its place.

And that was that.  It took no small amount of time for my tree to grow to the size that it was when we planted it in 1976.  Add to that the 35 years since we planted it.  Since that time, whole lifetimes for my ex, my sons and I have occurred, just as they have for the various renters who have occupied the house since our departure.  My country also seems in many ways to be an entirely different country than I remember it to be.  What a history our tree lived through and what stories it could have told!

It was there with us in 1976 when we celebrated the US Centennial.  It was a witness to 1978, when my ex and I decided to go our separate ways.  It was a solace to my sons and me in 1980 when we were confined inside for a week after Mount Saint Helens blew up in May.  Later that same year, we said good-bye as we returned to Morocco again, there to begin whole new lives none of us had even imagined.  Our tree continued growing just as we ourselves grew and matured in those lives.

It takes such a long time to build something great and beautiful.  It takes only moments to destroy it.  That is a very sober fact of life that unfortunately happens too often.  But I am very happy to say that, where this story is concerned, the destruction of our beautiful tree is not the end.  It will be a new beginning.  More on that in due course ....