One day many years ago a man built a house and in his backyard he planted two trees. And over many years, the trees grew and grew and so did the man. HIs house grew, his family grew, and everything, even his business, seemed to be reaching for the sky.
Year after year, the trees’ trunks grew fatter and taller and sprouted new leaves in the summer that provided shade for the man and his wife, then the man and his children, and finally, for the man, his children, and their children.
In the summer, the man and his family, and then his grandchildren, would play in the shade of the tree, really enjoy and appreciate the shade provided by the tree. And sometimes, they would sit, just the man, or the man and his family, they would sit on the patio behind the house in folding chairs and watch the sun shine through the gaps in the leaves.
The man spent many years mowing the grass underneath these trees. So many years in fact, that the man could almost predict the day when he would be mowing and see a leaf on the ground in front of him. And then, the man would rake the leaves into big piles and then put them into bags first. But later, many years later, the man would rake leaves into piles and the man’s grandchildren would jump into the piles so the man would rake them again over and over again. Sometimes, the man would even put the slide into the pile of leaves, and watch the grandchildren slide down again and again, and he would rake again and again.
Until the leaves were gone and raked, then there were no leaves for the man left, just bare trunks and grey skies and partially eaten corn cobs nailed to the trees for the squirrels. Then the trees were alone until late in the winter when snow would come, then the trees weren’t alone because the man’s children and eventually his grandchildren would play in the snow beneath the trees and use its small branches for arms. The small branches that fell from the tree made the best arms for snowmen.
The snow would melt and then the grass was brown and dead but not for long. The grass was not dead for very long because when the sun finally shone on the brown, dead grass it would grow and become green again and the man would start to mow. First, there was no shade, but eventually the leaves grew and the sun became hotter but the man was protected by the leaves.
This went on for many years after the man planted the trees. The man mowed the grass under the trees and raked their leaves and re-raked. Until the man couldn’t rake by himself anymore. The man raked but his grandchildren raked, too, and for years after this first year, the man raked less and watched more.
Even though the man did not rake anymore, there were fewer leaves to rake anyway. The trees, specifically the biggest tree, was too big and too old and it could no longer support the weight of its mighty limbs.
And so that summer, the view of the sunlight through the trees was obscured by arborists in the trees. The man’s view was limited by the arborists in the trees as they strung steel cables between their limbs and branches so the man could still enjoy the trees.
This worked, the steel cables strung between branches, it worked for some time at holding the trees together. But, eventually, the cables falter. Like the trees, the steel cables started to deteriorate.
However, now, the man was too old to take care of the tree by himself. So the man’s child and the man’s grandchild worked together to get the tree removed.
They did it, the man’s child and the grandchild, they found another crew of arborists this time to cut the trees down.
And when the arborists came to cut the trees down, they did so piece by piece. The biggest sections of the trees were sent to the woodchipper, but the small ones, the small pieces, those were left in a pile in the backyard of the man’s house. Now, pieces of the trees that once stood tall and proud many feet above the roof of the house, sat in an uneven pile in the dirt.
The man, wanting to do something now that the trees were gone, gave some of the pieces, those pieces from the pile in the dirt, to a friend to make carved bowls and vases. The friend made what the man wanted and the man had enough of the bowls and vases made to give to his family; he had enough items to give to his children and his children’s children.
This man, the man who is writing now, received one of these vases. The vase sits on this man’s bookshelf and holds random items, some change and memory cards. That’s what is held in the vase.
The man, he gave away all these items and kept one bowl for himself, for he and his wife. Now, the ground where the trees were once rooted is gone and the pile is gone, too. But the man, the man is still here. Though like the tree, he too will be gone one day.
Like the man lost his trees, so too will this man, the man who writes, lose the man. But, he’ll still have the vase. Maybe, this man thinks, that will be okay. To have the vase even when the man is gone. Maybe, he thinks to himself, he’ll have more than just the vase. He’ll have memories of the trees.