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I was told I had to. The nature of the job. You have to if you’re told to. I didn’t show any signs of resistance when the bosses made the announcement. Maybe the right corner of my mouth twitched, and my eyebrows perked upward, but I wear big dark sunglasses, too big for my face. I doubt anyone saw what my heart was feeling. 

“1,300 trees are to be cut down around the golf course.” They didn’t tell us why. They simply said the project starts Monday. Yeah, they call cutting down 1,300 trees a “project,” as if we’re about to cut paper for a kindergarten art class.

I told my wife I am struggling with this new project, this new “you have to” part of my job. She understands. But, she knows she can’t fix the problem, and neither can I. We both work two jobs. Our days are full of work and kids.  What’s on both of our minds is this: “I need this job. I need to suppress my moral compass, and do what’s asked of me. I love the trees, but I need to think about the bills, the groceries, the kids. I need to think about our lives.” But, I am wondering about the lives of the trees. I am wondering what they need too. 

This is more than a moral compass thing. This is a heart thing. This is a spirit thing. This is the memory of growing up climbing trees. Yeah, lots of kids climb trees. But, I talked to the trees. I hugged the trees. I heard the trees speaking back to me, feeling what I was feeling, knowing what I was thinking, as if they were thinking what I was thinking, and I was thinking what they were thinking. I’d ask a particular tree if it would be all right to pick a leaf and a tiny piece of bark to put under my pillow at night. I recall every tree saying yes. I imagine other kids did this too, but it never came up in conversation or our casual play. I wish it had. Why did loving trees this way have to be a big secret?  Why does it still have to be a big secret?

I am still connected to trees in these ways. Minus the climbing part and the putting leaves and bark under my pillow part. On the nights when I can’t sleep, and the house is silent after my wife and five kids are asleep, I sneak out the back door, the one door I know doesn’t squeak. I walk to the lone live oak in our backyard. I stand beneath her grand limbs and feel the unwavering warmth of them, like nurturing arms extending, like wild wings soaring in the moonlight, like freedom unfurled. Trees know this. Humans do too, but we forget. Trees expansively root and rise. People get stuck. 

I love my family, and the depths of that love have brought me to my knees in both tears and laughter over the years, the richness of that love at the hub of my purpose in this life. And, my love for the trees is why I know the richness of the love I have for my family. I know because the trees know. 

How can I show up to work on Monday and pretend that my love for the trees doesn’t exist? How will I abide by this call of duty?  How will I numb myself?  I feel sadness. I feel disappointment. I feel rage that doesn’t know what to do with itself. And that scares me. The trees keep me centered. Who am I if they’re gone? What will center me? 

This “project” is going to be like taking an ax to my heart, to my spirit, to everything I know.  Cut the trees down. Cut me down. Felled trees. Felled me. I have learned to be a good pretender, but this kind of pretending will require greatness. That I don’t have. This project feels like a suicide mission. Is that greatness?

“Daddy, why are you standing out here under this tree?”

My youngest son stands beside me in the dark. I hadn’t heard him. Yes, he must’ve come from the squeakless door as I had. I know I should pretend, try on The Greatness of Pretending, devise a facade story about why I am standing outside in the dark under this tree. But instead, I kneel in front of my son and gently take hold of his upper arms. I pull him to me and hold him. He doesn’t speak. He wraps his arms around me after a moment, and I start to cry. 

“What’s the matter, Daddy?”

His voice is so innocent and gentle. I start sobbing, holding him tighter, remembering when I was his age the way I wrapped my arms around the young live oaks in my younger years. When my arms and their arms were smaller, and when my relationship with all those young trees began with fingertips and branchtips outreached from our hearts. When they taught me how to simultaneously root and rise. When I was unfurled freedom. When I wasn’t stuck. 

I slowly release my son from me, and look at him. I can see his eyes holding mine in the moonlight. 

“What’s the matter, Daddy?” he asks me again. 

I close my eyes, breathe in, and an explosive exhale escapes me, loud like the roar of thunder. The roar is true and raw, and I know I don’t have the capacity to pretend. I think in that moment, I’ll take the “F” for that art project. 

I open my eyes, look into my son’s eyes and see nestled in their center the vibrance of the truth and rawness exhaled from my roar. 

“There are 1,300 trees that will be cut down beginning Monday. I am assigned to this project. I will be cutting those trees down. The trees that have grown as you have grown, as I have grown, as we all have grown. I am sad about this. I tell myself I know what I have to do, but I don’t know. Maybe it would help if I knew why those trees have to come down. But, I don’t know. They won’t tell us the reason.”

My son blinks, his face full of understanding, the soul, instinctual, and wise kind of understanding that doesn’t require explanation. It just is. He knows. 

He backs away from me enough to take hold of my hand and nudge it upward, an invitation for me to stand once again. We walk, and he guides me closer to the lone live oak until we are standing right in front of her. He places my hand to her bark, and then puts his small hand over mine. In the darkness graced with moonlight, I feel her pulse and I know my son does too.

“Daddy, this is what we must do. This is what we must do to all the trees. Before Monday. Then the trees will know what to do.”

And so, we do. 

I was inspired to write this story after I received a phone call from my father. He shared the news that 1,300 trees would be cut down around the golf course in their neighborhood. When inquiring about the reason for this decision, residents were denied an explanation. The devastation in my father’s voice crushed me. My father and I have a thing about trees. We read books about trees. We share memories of trees. We communicate with trees. We share anything and everything about trees. Writing this story invigorated hope for my father and me. When we can invigorate hope through the power of narrative, we feel the truth. And the trees do too. That’s the kind of truth the world needs to feel too. 

     I stood with denim Oshkosh overalls on and sneakers firm on dirt, my curiosity poised as I peered upward at the young birch tree. Its branches flowed this way and that, leaves tangled like the strands of hair that rebelliously sprayed from my braids. 

     “I want to climb you,” I whispered. 

     A male cardinal darted and fluttered way up high, its flash of red a red light not to climb the tree? No. Its flash of red was the blood flowing through my heart, my life force, my impetus, my knowing. And so, the ascent began. 

      I channeled my inner monkey, my lanky-legged flexibility free in the bagginess of my overalls. A gift. My hands wrapped around the tree’s narrow trunk, a gymnast’s grasp on the parallel bars, a true hold on wonder and assurance. Behind me a bit, my left foot was toe-tipped like a ballerina’s, my right foot was planted at the base of the trunk, heel on dirt, toes facing upward. My right knee was pressed against my heart as my back and shoulders hunched into the extension of my straight arms. The about-to-launch-a-treetrunk-shimmy stance. I looked up. 

     “Here I come. Thank you, Tree. Thank you, Roots, Branches, and Leaves, for holding me as I hold you.”

     And the masterful shimmy was launched. Careful and intentional. Movements meditative like the monkey who climbs and connects and breathes with both deliberate and instinctive sweeps. 

     The tree trunk shimmy ended when I reached my first branch, and I took hold with grateful grip. I rested. I checked both feet and both hands were secure, each finding solace in the pause, getting acquainted with each one’s branch of choice. Sure. 

     I continued the ascent. Navigating which branch and where on the branch to connect with. Branches over me, next to me, then under me as I climbed up and up. 

And then I was there. The spot, the crux in the branches I thought I could see from the ground. And then I did see it. Sure. Wonder assured. A true crux, where three branches darted in three directions from the trunk. I perched myself right in the spot. 

     “Hello there, Branches. Fred, George, Harry, yes. It’s nice to meet you.”

     “When is the last time you climbed one of us, my dear?” the tree said. 

     “Oh, that’s quite coincidental of you to ask, for I was just writing about the time I first climbed a birch tree. I was eight years old,” I said. 

     “And how old are you now?” asked the tree. 

     “Fifty-two,” I said, my gaze drifting to my feet as I imagined the tree before me standing so tall, its roots tucked snuggly into earth, and its leaves choosing to drift softly into shades of yellow.

     “Fifty-two! So, it’s been forty-four years since you climbed a tree!” the tree said. 

     “Yes. You’re a fine mathematician, dear tree,” I said. 

     “Well, I invite you to at least touch my trunk, grasp my branches, and press your heart against my bark,” the tree said. 

     “That’s just what I was thinking,” I said as I leaned in. 

     I paused in the embrace. The tree was silent, but my thoughts were loud, loud as in, Do you hear this?

     Tears streamed from eyes to bark. Home. The one word, the one truth. I’ve been so far from home so often in these last forty-four years. How did I stray so far? How did I pass so many trees and not pause to at least ponder and remember, if not climb one?

     “I feel you,” the tree finally said. 

     “I feel you too,” I said.

     “I know you do,” the tree said. 

     “How?” I asked. 

     “Because the heartbeat of those who’ve ever climbed a tree, even if they’ve strayed for what feels like eternity, have a pulse that quakes the spirit of existence itself,” the tree said.

A young girl meanders far from home

on a winter adventure

through thickets of forest.

She comes upon

a tiny pine tree,

its tip a sprig in the snow.

She almost steps on it,

but doesn’t.

She leans down and brushes the snow 

from its branches, low and high

then digs down and down

with wet mittens

and wild wonder 

until she reaches the base

of the teeny thing.

It is a foot tall, at most.

She pulls off her mittens

and slides from her left wrist 

her jade-beaded bracelet that is

adorned with one charm - a gold star.

She hangs it on the tippity-top sprig of the tree.

She stands up and looks down. 

“I’ll remember where you are in this great forest. 

How could I not? 

You’re my new friend. 

I’ll bring another ornament for you next year. 

And I’ll cast a ring of light around you, 

so that between now and then, 

no one finds you or cuts you down. 

You will live as long as you wish. 

I love you, Tree.

See you next year.”

The young girl plops to her knees

and hugs the tree, pausing in the embrace,

And then stomps through the snow

For a long journey home.

Seventy-eight years later. 

An old woman meanders far from home

on a winter adventure

through thickets of forest.

She comes upon

a grand pine tree,

its tip a sparkle high in the sky.

She almost misses it, her eyesight fading,

but doesn’t.

She approaches the tree and brushes the snow 

from its branches, low and high

then reaches up and up

with wet mittens

and wild wonder 

until she reaches the highest branch she can

of the towering thing.

It is a hundred feet tall, at least.

She pulls off her mittens

and slides from her left coat pocket

a small felted cardinal ornament. 

She hangs it a few branches below last year’s ceramic angel.

She stands back and looks up.

“I’ll remember where you are in this great forest. 

How could I not? 

You’re my old friend. 

I’ll bring another ornament for you next year. 

And I’ll cast a ring of light around you, 

so that between now and then, 

no one finds you or cuts you down. 

You will live as long as you wish. 

I love you, Tree.

See you next year.”

The old woman rises to her tippity-toes

and hugs the tree, pausing in the embrace,

And then stomps through the snow

For a long journey home.