Now that we’re officially into winter and no longer in the shadow of this fallen giant, an official farewell to one of the most trying episodes of our homeowning career…
* * *
I’m half dryad / I have trees
to tend to / and trees
to tend to me
– anonymous 19-year-old poet
OK, I admit it. That poet is me. Or at least it used to be. I’ve always over-identified with trees, never more so than in my early twenties, when I would climb trees and even play guitar or smoke while sitting in their branches.
I have yelled at utility companies for clearing too many branches, and am proud that our neighborhood emblem is an oak tree. A few years ago I pleaded with our neighbors not to take down our massive pin oak between our houses. So it felt a bit personal when that same oak tree fell over in a sudden violent storm this past summer, smashing my Mazda 5 minivan, putting several holes in our roof, and sending us on a months-long journey of worries and repairs.
I had always been nervous a branch might fall, but the whole damn thing? I did not see that coming. We watched it fall while standing in our living room, quickly feeling drips as the rain poured through holes in the roof and soaked through the insulation. Thankfully Jenn had the presence of mind to grab a flashlight and drag a rubber washbin up to the attic, or else our whole ceiling would have collapsed.
People kept telling us that we were lucky, since no one was hurt. But I have to admit that’s not how I felt at the time. There were too many insurance claims to settle, too many sudden financial setbacks. I knew I was far from the only one in the city facing similar issues, and I’ve since looked at natural disasters on TV with a great deal of sympathy, but at that moment we were caught up in what felt like our own private tornado.
It rained a lot at night in the weeks following that storm. Each time it did, I couldn’t sleep, or would settle uneasily into tree-related dreams. I pictured trees falling, all over the street, one by one, knocking over our houses, poking through the bedroom wall, knocking out my teeth. But one morning I woke up and realized: It’s OK. You are OK. Your kids are OK. The kids next door are OK. Your house is dinged and your car is gone and you’re going to have to come up with a lot of money from somewhere, but it could have been so much worse.
For fun, and out of necessity, I started biking or riding the bus to work. I talked to people at the bus stop. I witnessed occasional scenes of beauty (birds scattering over Turkey Creek, fog beside the new Ferris Wheel) but unless I wrote them down I tended to forget them quickly. Sometimes I wrote emails on my phone to old friends. Each bus stop is at least a 25 minute walk from my house, so I got a bit of extra exercise, stopped for coffee once in a while, remembered that a car is something everyone seems to own but not everyone does. I began to feel more connected to this city. But it was also an hour commute each way, and once it got rainy and cold I decided to buy a car after all.
The house, however, was still in need of a lot of repairs. At first we started small, spending hours on our hands and knees digging out sticks and oak tree fragments from the front lawn. At one point I told Jenn: it feels like we’re picking out pieces of the tree from our souls. Still, it was a welcome break from dealing with insurance claims, which is a story far too tedious and frustrating to rely here. Let’s just say that Jake is not your buddy and Flo is not your friend.
In the meantime, when in doubt, get moving. I learned this from Jenn and from my dad. For her it was landscaping, picking out a new garage door. For my dad, it was ripping down the dilapidated gutters, which I think he felt embarrassed by on our behalf.
For me, it was repairing and painting the porch, digging up the yard, and planting new grass seed. I’ve mowed the lawn since I was a kid, but I think this was the first time I’d ever actually cared about my front lawn. At night I even whispered encouragement to the patches of seedlings.
I won’t claim it was fun to get knocked down the way we did. In the moment it was super stressful. But it was also OK. For the most part, I’ve had a pretty charmed existence, and I think to really appreciate my little life I had to get to know the ground a bit.
Naturally I wish I would have had the tree taken out before it took such a heavy toll. But I also remember how beautiful it was every fall. I can’t find any photos, but I can picture it— an expansive golden canopy filtering light and casting wavering shadows on our lawn, stirring in the breeze, providing shelter as we ran around beneath it or labored to sweep up its endless leaves. The end was traumatic, but it had a good run.
Months later, the grass is green, the house almost repaired. We’ve mostly moved on to other things. And in a time of unbelievable suffering for so many in the world, my own problems feel tiny. But tiny moments of joy also feel more precious now than they ever have. A home is a place to live, a car is to get around easily. Our real treasure is each other and our time together. It took me a few months to really feel it, but all those people were right. We are so lucky.
Postscript: a noble closing sentiment, but don’t leave things to luck. If you’ve got an aging or just a large tree poised dangerously close to your house or neighbor’s house, get it checked out, trimmed, or removed completely if necessary. 19-year-old half dryad me might not have understood, but 40+ me has learned the hard way: better safe than sorry, and while still not cheap to remove a tree, it’s much cheaper to do it preventively than pay for it later.
My advice as far as insurance goes, having one through this and talked to others: Know what’s in your policy and if possible go through a broker or a human being when you purchase it. Stuff you buy online ain’t the same, even if it’s backed by one of the big boys. And while there are some kind folks who work in insurance, getting them to call you back can take weeks or even months, so prepare to be patient.
lucas wetzel 