The tree was already huge when we bought the house many years ago, a handsome catalpa that stood beside the back door. Two main branches reached high overhead and its broad leaves offered blessed shade.
Many seasons passed and then the bark started falling off. A forester came to look and pointed out where lightning had struck long ago. “There’s rot inside,” he said. “If the tree was standing in a field, we could let it live out its normal life.”
I knew what he was saying. Our neighbor’s house was at risk, our house too. But oh, this living tree that had hurt no one, that was my friend.
A crew came at the end of May and the chain saws screamed all day. Finally the enormous trunk lay on its side, ten feet around, a hundred rings. Every branch held tiny green leaves.
I escaped from the house and met a friend. She asked how I was doing. “Not so well,” I said. “We had to take our catalpa tree down today.”
“And you loved it,” she said. I stood there crying.
