We lost a tree.

I tried to find photographs of it, but there were very few. The tree was never the subject of any of my photography. Sad. Now that the tree is gone, I regret how little I thought of it.

It was there, at the edge of our front yard, greeting us when we came home.

It was there, giving us beautiful shade every summer.

My children climbed up into fullness, sitting on its sturdy branches. They hid up high, spying on neighbors and unsuspecting pedestrians.

My children played “catch the leaf” in the fall, running hither and thither, giggling and gasping, trying to catches its lovely leaves.

My children’s stuffed animals, Pippo, Cloudy, and U-Umph, also played in and by the tree.

A storm blew off a large low limb which ripped down the trunk to the ground. It was a fatal blow. I took a picture of the fallen limb which landed on my Little Free Library. The library was repaired; the tree began to die.

A week ago, some men came to our home. They cut away its branches, then its limbs, and finally its trunk. The tree is in pieces in a pile on the ground. There is but empty space where once there was such life.

Its wood will warm our house in winters to come.

Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree has been on my mind.

Our tree gave and gave. It gave much to our family without our thinking about it. Our tree filtered the air. It consumed carbon. It created homes for animals and birds and insects. And with its death, it will warm our home.

Trees live long, quiet lives. They can communicate to each other. It seems to me that trees are the most evolved species on earth. We humans may have sentience and intelligence, but we take and take and take. Trees give and give and give. What is more evolved that that?

Good-bye, my dear, sweet maple.