During the early part of this summer, an afternoon deluge, fueled by intense heat and humidity, became a near-daily event here in Northern Virginia, as in much of the country.  The cascade of events leading to the loss of our second-to-last silver maple began with one such violent  thunderstorm in mid-July.  An ear-splitting boom told us that lightning had struck perilously close to our house.  My husband saw puffs of smoke dissipating as he stepped outside.  A tall pine in my bird-feeding area bore telltale signs of the strike:  pale vertical gouges where the bark had been blown away.  

The storm raged on, and the power soon went out.  We were expecting six guests for dinner in about an hour.  Salmon was in the oven, half cooked.  Earlier in the week, we’d almost canceled the get-together, when it seemed unlikely that our new HVAC system would be installed in time.  We’d been largely without AC for over two weeks.  But the work had been completed that very morning. The entire house had just begun to cool down when the electricity shut off.   Should we forge ahead?  We considered our options.  This was a welcome meal for our new minister.  After all the prep, I didn’t want to postpone.   I could finish the cooking on my mother’s gas-powered stovetop.  So we pressed on.  H began a search for battery-powered candles.  

In the rush to prepare for the evening, it escaped our notice for a while that an enormous, tree-sized portion of a tall white pine lay stretched across the front yard.  The noise of the wind and rain had masked any sounds of its fall.  The top-most part of the tree had come to rest in the crook of the divided trunk of one of the two remaining old maples.  

When our friends arrived, we gathered on the screened porch for drinks (much-needed) and watched as torrential rain poured down around us.  Happily, before long, the power was back on.  Our new HVAC system was running again, thankfully.

The next morning we began to realize the extent of the lightning damage.   Several outlets at our house and next door at my mother’s were visibly scorched, and numerous lights, interior and exterior, were no longer working.  WIFI and internet were out, as was a ceiling fan that H had replaced twice before.  My new computer seemed to have been affected.  As we continued to discover still more ways in which the lightning strike had wreaked havoc, we decided to stop lamenting the losses, and  instead to be grateful that we had escaped both fire and death.

It took a while to get the fallen pine completely cleared away.  The final remaining portion resembled a long-legged creature crying out for a head.  I added a plaster mask left over from a school art project, surrounded by a fall wreath.  

Two weeks later, we had just begun our Cape Cod vacation.  During dinner at the home of friends in Wellfleet,  a neighbor called to tell us that one of our trees was down, blocking the side street.  It was, of course, the maple that had been struck by the falling pine.  Half of the huge tree had collapsed, crushing our mailbox as it went down.  We’re very fortunate in our neighbors.  Without our asking, and before we even knew what had happened, these kind and thoughtful people were out with chainsaws, working together to clear the impassable road.  They sent photos to keep us informed.  

Friends who assessed the condition of the remaining part of the tree were in agreement:  it was dangerously unstable.  An expert echoed the diagnosis, and said it would likely fall toward the house and could well hit the roof.  We had little choice but to have the rest of the maple taken down as soon as possible.  We hated the thought that our old tree would disappear from us while we were away.  We wouldn’t get to say goodbye.  

Later, as our long drive back from Massachusetts neared its end, we braced  for the first glimpse of home after the removal of the tree.  We still weren’t prepared, and the sight hit us like a punch.  The house appeared uncomfortably exposed, like someone caught unexpectedly undressed.  It looked vulnerable and a little embarrassed.  

And that flat, sheared-off stump!  It became the first thing I saw every morning as I looked out my bedroom window.  It would soon be reduced to a pile of mulch, and will eventually be planted over with grass seed.  My husband and I both mused regretfully over whether we should have left the base of the tree, as we did with the slowly decaying and battered maple nearest the road.  Would that be a less painful sight?  We examined the photos sent soon after half the tree had fallen.  It might not have even been possible to leave a snag, a stump, because there had been a hollow space near the bottom of the maple ever since we moved in.  A big, low branch must have broken off many years ago.  The bark had grown back around the opening as the tree healed itself.    

From certain viewpoints, the opening resembled a heart.  

With the maple, we also lost a robust, sizable holly that grew close beside it, in the sheltering embrace of the larger tree.  

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, the loss of a tree, and an old tree, at that, is no big deal.  Certainly not in the face of ongoing wars in which helpless children escape battle strikes only to die of starvation.  Certainly not when the killing of neighbors going peacefully about mundane activities has become a routine, even expected, everyday occurrence. 

But the loss of a tree can be seen as the loss of an agent of peace.  We need our silent friends in the plant realm to counter the pervasive meanness and brutality of the world  we humans have managed, somehow, to build.  In times of distress (and when is there not a reason for distress?) nature stands by to offer comfort and solace.  In the assuring company of a familiar tree friend, we may yet experience a soul-filling escape.  We may find a fleeting illusion of harmony amidst this twenty-first century disharmony.