Pine Tree

Tomorrow we are having one of our pine trees removed. It's part of our 'curb appeal' project. Many of the trees we planted 24 years ago are overgrown and have suffered damage over the years. This one is in the worst shape. It's sick and has lost several limbs. So we made the decision to remove it as part of the new plan for the front.

I feel terrible about it. The tree lives today. Tomorrow it will no longer live. I actually talk to our trees and plants. I thank them for their beauty and for oxygen, and for the shade they provide. I want to apologize to the pine tree for what we are about to do. I think it may know. We do not know if trees can think or feel. Of course they don't have brains so why would they? But they are ancient life forms and I have every reason to believe that they have something akin to a sense of the world around them. That's why I talk to them. I talk baby talk to the house plants. "You're so pretty. Do you want some water? Yes you do." I exhale my carbon dioxide into their leaves. I walk around the yard and will pat a trunk here and there and say, "I just love you - you are so beautiful."

Tomorrow when they cut the tree down, and then cut it into smaller pieces, and throw the pieces in a truck, and then use saws and tools to dig out the stump, I will be thinking about Shel Silverstein's book The Giving Tree and I may shed a tear.