Off With Its Limb

Dear You,

After nearly twenty years of mowing the grass around it, the tree had changed from an impediment to a stalwart and dependable friend. So it was a shock last Fall to turn the corner from the back of the house and find a major part of Shigawa (he was, after all, a flowering Japanese cherry tree) broken out and lying on the ground.

The piece that had given way was not just a small part -- near the trunk it was a foot or more in diameter, and the whole thing was easily thirty feet long.

As with any creature with a broken limb, I called a doctor. Bob came right away, appropriately for such an emergency, and as he surveyed the damage in his dry, tsk-tsk way, said there was nothing to be done but surgery. "Will he survive?" I asked.

More silent study, and finally, "Well, yes . . . but every tree has a lifespan, and this is a pretty old one." The next day the Assistants came, and in a few minutes cut and tended to the wound. At Christmas, I burned in the fireplace the portions they saved for me -- sort of a ritual, I guess, and wondered how the amputee would look come Spring.

Well, it's here, it's just as pretty as ever, and cutting the lawn was even a little easier today.