Dear Reader:

I came across an article that really ‘hit home’ for me and brought back so many memories. The article, itself, will make most of you nostalgic over a special tree (s) in a grandparents’ yard or favorite aunt or even your own yard. This article is about the symbolism of twin trees planted for a special remembrance for generations to come.

(Source: Awakin.org) “Planting Twin Trees” (Robin Wall Kimmerer)

“There was a custom in the mid-eighteen hundreds of planting twin trees to celebrate a marriage and the starting of a home. The stance of these two, just ten feet apart, recalls a couple standing together on the porch steps, holding hands. The reach of their shade links the front porch with the barn across the road, creating a shady path of back and forth for that young family.

I realize that those first homesteaders were not the beneficiaries of that shade, at least not as a young couple. They must have meant for their people to stay here. Surely those two were sleeping up on Cemetery Road long before the shade arched across the road. I am living today in the shady future they imagined, drinking sap from trees planted with their wedding vows. They could not have imagined me, many generations later, and yet I live in the gift of their care. Could they have imagined that when my daughter Linden was married, she would choose leaves of maple sugar for the wedding giveaway?

Such a responsibility I have to these people and these trees, left to me, an unknown come to live under the guardianship of the twins, with a bond physical, emotional, and spiritual. I have no way to pay them back. Their gift to me is far greater than I have ability to reciprocate. They’re so huge as to be nearly beyond my care, although I could scatter granules of fertilizer at their feet and turn the hose on them in summer drought. Perhaps all I can do is love them. All I know to do is to leave another gift, for them and for the future, those next unknowns who will live here.”

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After Hurricane Hugo took down all the pine trees in my front yard, except one, I decided I wanted to plant Bradford Pears. At that time I was completely illiterate about anything green and growing but I loved their colors in the spring and fall. So I saved my money and got two (I thought twin) Bradford Pears to be planted. One on my side of the duplex and one on mother’s side…so from then on I would refer to each pear tree as mine or mom’s.

Mother’s Bradford Pear took off like a rocket….grew tall and spread out…absolutely beautiful. Mine, on the other hand, looked like a “minnie-me” version of mother’s …small and petite. (I had someone tell me later the nursery had planted two different types of Bradford Pears by mistake…and different genders (?)…mine was small and petite and would never be big like the one on mom’s side.

Mother (secretly) loved that hers was so much more beautiful and smiled every time that conversation came up. It was a few years after mother’s death and I was renting the other side out to Nancy Parker (wonderful friend and tenant) when a summer thunderstorm sent mother’s Bradford falling head first on Nancy and me standing on the porch talking.

It wasn’t until later that I discovered Bradford Pears have weak root systems, particularly after a flood, and it is not uncommon for them to just topple over after a long period of rain. That is when I put the barrel on mother’s side and filled it with seasonal flowers.

Suddenly my Bradford Pear started growing and growing and growing. Today it is huge…nothing petite about it anymore. (Middle age is a bummer for humans and trees apparently in the weight category!)  I feel sure one day a tropical storm will take it out but so far so good.

There is always a little ache in my heart when I think about how much pleasure those trees brought mother and me…laughing over our friendly competitiveness with the “twin” trees.

Perhaps that is why I came up with the idea of planting a Japanese Maple for each grandchild. (Soon there will be one more for Eloise when she arrives.) It is a legacy of love…a legacy of shade.  Hopefully one day the grandchildren will all return to Boo Boo’s and sit beside their tree in the shade and read wonderful stories of talking trees.

So until tomorrow… “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone else planted a tree a long time ago” (Warren Buffet)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Don’t forget to send the name of someone with breast cancer or any cancer whom you would like to see listed on our team poster as someone we are walking for.

Happy Birthday Bekah (today) and  Mollie and Susan (yesterday)  – I could have sworn Bekah and Mollie had the same birthdays…now I know it is Susan Swicegood and Mollie who share birthdays …our growing family must create a “Match Birthday” card game…it would be fun to play!

Eva Cate, once again took those long skinny legs and ran her little heart out….faster than a speeding bullet….for James B. Edwards Fun Run to help buy provisions for the school.

*I kept Rutledge and Lachlan last night so Walsh could take Mollie out for her birthday….everything looks so pretty in and outside the house…I discovered a wonderful fishing hole Walsh is taking the boys to and a park…we had a good time.

On the way home as I was turning onto Highway 78 off I-26 I saw that Trident Medical Hospital was all lit up in pink. It made me feel so wonderful to visually see my medical caregivers sharing in this moving symbolism.

If you have not donated yet and would like to…we would appreciate the gesture….we are really close to a new goal for Legally Pink! Thank you!!!

Link: http://www.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/CHS_SouthCarolinaAffiliate?pg=entry&fr_id=6930