If A Tree Falls In The Forest ...

The question is, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it, did it every really happen?" and I don't know the answer to that metaphysical question.  I do know that if a dearly beloved tree falls in my village I know it happened!

For thirty-three years I have looked out my kitchen window and admired an old, towering sugar maple in the church yard.

And then this happened during a wind storm. I heard the creaking and cracking and went outside just in time to see her go over. ~

She has laid her weary arms down and the men with saws have chopped her up and taken her away.  I mourn that beautiful tree.

I will never see her out my kitchen window again.

All is not lost, though.  Many years ago I said I would love to have a picture of that tree in every season. Life was busy with work and children, I didn't have a decent camera and I never took the pictures.

For a full year, whenever I was away from home, my dad came and took a shot of the tree from just outside my kitchen window. ~

He never said a word about it until he had all four photos for me.  It meant a great deal to know he was paying attention to even the little things that mattered to me and would put the effort into seeing it was done. ~

My dad is gone and the tree is gone, but the pictures will serve as a reminder of all that was lovely in my life. 

I hope I pay as careful attention when people are talking to me as my dad did twenty years ago.