Lent: Spring

Down by the foot of our driveway is a maple tree growing on a small strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road on an easement the city owns that runs through our front yard.

The tree is about fifteen high, with a canopy that spreads over our flower bed, our driveway and the neighbor's, and a piece segment of the road big enough to park a car under, during the summer. Part of this spread is because, about 6 feet from the ground, the tree trunk forks into three co-dominant stems, and each segment grows about 120 degrees from each of its sisters.

Or they used to. About nine years ago, Hurricane Irene came through the area, canceling flights, flooding low-lying areas and generally being a hurricane. A week after the storm had passed, the old girl dropped one of her three stems, kerplunk, right onto the road.

The city (eventually) came and carted the fallen branch away, and in the nine years since, the tree has continued to grow new leaves every spring, stretch its arms out a little wider and stand a little taller ... as the wound where the missing stem grew becomes a little worse, and more and more of the lesser branches on the surviving stems wither and die under the strain.

We always think of spring as a time of new beginnings and renewal, but that's a hollow promise to some. It must be awful when you don't know you're already dead.


Copyright © 2020 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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