The Trees We Leave Behind, and the Ones We Grow

“Time waits for no one…

The forests, the trees, the rivers, the seas

All die of this disease”

— Living Colour, “Times Up”

Clear-Cutting Memories

After we moved into our first house, my sister began sending us a live Christmas tree each year. We enjoyed it through the holidays, and afterward, I planted it in the yard, usually without much success.

The fact that my yard was in Los Angeles was already a strike against these little saplings. Mulholland’s aqueduct may feed an overabundance of swimming pools and keep perfectly manicured, dark‑green lawns alive, but the San Fernando Valley is still a desert. This was hardly the native habitat of a fragile Christmas tree.

It also did not help that my thumb was not exactly green. At least one of the trees met its demise when I ran it over with my lawn mower.

There were two exceptions to these failures, both during El Niño years. The storms during those years gave these trees the saturated soil needed to take root.

Coincidentally, both were planted following my eldest children’s first Christmases. As the first tree grew, it became part of our family's holiday traditions. At first, one strand of lights was enough to fill its branches, but as it widened and stretched upward, we kept adding more. Eventually, a ladder was needed to reach its top; when that wasn’t enough, I attached a brick to the end of the string and threw it over.

Planted five years after his sister’s tree, my son’s grew in its own way, noticeably different in size and shape. The contrast felt symbolic, a quiet parallel to the distinct personalities each child developed over time.

After my first wife and I divorced, we both moved on, and the house where we had raised our family for 14 years was sold. As I drove away with the last of my belongings in the trunk, I said goodbye to the two beautiful trees in the front yard. The children they were named for were moving away, but their lives would always be rooted in that house. Or so I wanted to believe.

A couple of years later, I drove by the old house and was stunned to see that the new owners had cut down both trees. Without the trees that once made it our home, it was just another house on the block. It was one more reminder that time moves forward without sentiment; no one and nothing is spared from its wrecking ball.

Putting Down New Roots

As the first Christmas since our move to Washington State approached, my wife and I were having trouble agreeing on what type of tree to purchase. She was lobbying for the artificial kind—less mess, no fire danger, and safer for the dogs. I craved the smell that a real tree provides. Besides, how fun would it be to take our daughters to one of those cut-your-own-tree fields?

“Not much,” my wife insisted. She has always preferred indoor activities, and a move to the Pacific Northwest did not change that.

The impasse was broken during a trip to the supermarket. Seeing a display of live trees outside instantly brought back memories of those two trees in California. It was not as convenient as a pre-lit artificial tree, but it also avoided the downsides of a cut tree. Best of all, we would not have to go out in the cold rain to cut it down. The compromise was accepted.

After the holidays, I headed to the backyard, hoping I would have better luck than I usually did in California. I dug a hole in what felt like the perfect spot, visible from our living room window, or at least would be once it grew a bit. For now, it was barely peeking over a small rise in the yard.

After I planted it, another trip to the supermarket resulted in the purchase of three more trees. They were smaller than the first, but they were on sale for ten dollars. How could I pass them up?

As I planted these trees, I thought a lot about the symbolism they represented.

We uprooted our entire lives for this move. It allowed us to be more involved in our grandchildren's lives, though at the cost of leaving friends and family behind in California. As we put down roots in our new home, we will get to watch our miniature forest grow.

After finishing planting the trees, I noticed they were marked down to five dollars. Unable to resist, I made our little forest a little bigger. Maybe that’s how you build a life after uprooting it, one small tree at a time.