Growing trees

When we moved to Oklahoma, we told our realtor we wanted a newer house on a lot with trees – not baby trees, mind you; mature trees.

We had lived four years in Indiana. There, our house stood on a treeless site wrested from cornfields. Now, we wanted a house young in age with trees tall in stature.

Our realtor looked at us as an adult might look at a child who’s just said something very innocent and very dumb. She first informed us, then demonstrated: The trees in Oklahoma City suburbs generally happen after the fact. You build a house on a lovely, but bare, lot. As part of the landscaping, you add baby trees. Thus, if you want tall trees, you buy an older house.

We looked at older houses but couldn’t find one that passed muster. Several came close – so close, in fact, that our realtor threw up her hands over the one “deal breaker” on which my husband would not compromise. With two middle school age daughters, he wisely insisted on two sinks, not only in the master bath, but also in the girls’ bath. After looking for weeks, we could not find a house more than eight years old that had two sinks in the second bath.

Thus, we bought a seven-year-old house with medium-size trees – you might say, middle school age trees.

Nine years later, my, how those trees have grown! Having left behind that awkward stage, they’ve matured dramatically. They’ve blossomed beautifully.

Sadly, not every tree made it. One standing at the back corner of our lot suddenly succumbed to heat stroke shortly after we moved in.

Two pin oaks, also in the back yard, stood not as tall as me when we bought the house. One of them withered quickly. Five years later, the other had not grown an inch. A few leaves hung from a few branches jutting out from a spindly trunk. That little tree looked like the pin oak version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.

Ultimately, like Charlie Brown, we cut the thing down. Unlike Charlie Brown, we did not decorate it.

I felt the most grief when we said good-bye to the Bradford pear growing next to my home office window. About three years ago, the previously healthy tree began looking piqued. Two tree doctors told us, “It has blight. Cut it down. If you don’t, eventually a strong storm may topple it into your house.”

We waited two years, hoping that tree would defy the experts’ predictions and recover. Finally, confronting our denial, we told the yard man, “Take it down.” He did. I watched. Silly as it sounds, I miss that Bradford pear.

I thoroughly enjoy our several remaining trees, especially the ones visible through our large front and back windows. Yes, they provide shade. But they also provide something intangible, soothing and indescribably pleasant.

In Ezekiel 17:24, God talks about trees. He says, “All the trees of the field will know that I the LORD bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. 'I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it'” (NIV).

God grows trees.

Ah, but here’s what both grieves and soothes: What he said there in Ezekiel about trees also applies to people.

© 2007 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved.