A Tree is not Just a Tree

"Can the Memorial Park put a pine tree emblem on Mama and Daddy's name plate?" I asked my little brother Joel today via text. My sister-in-law replied that the only symbols or emblems they had available were religious. Hmmmm....I thought, "Don't they know that to our mother, pine trees ARE a religion?!"

Pausing to take in the view during our hike on the Frey Trail/Bandelier National Monument

This past summer Dave and I took a few hiking trips. One of them being to my beloved Bandelier, New Mexico. As we hiked the Frey Trail down to Frijoles Canyon, we passed several pinon pine trees. My mother's absolute favorite tree in this whole wide world. "Dave!" I said as we quickly stepped over rocks and brush, "While we're here in New Mexico we should see if there are any local nurseries that carry pinon pines and bring one home to Mama!" With only one day, (a Sunday) left of our trip, my idea was too late. No plant nurseries were open, and after calling around to the big box stores they had none in stock. We drove home with full hearts, but a car empty of any tree we could bring home to Utah.

Our Mama's favorite tree in the whole wide world. A pinon pine (sounds like "pin-yone")

Our child-hood home. Bandelier National Monument aka "Heaven on Earth"

As our nest is nearly empty, the approaching Christmas holiday is becoming more about gathering with our children and grandchildren for an all-out Christmas Eve feast than it is putting up decorations and a tree. Last year Bronson single-handedly put up and decorated both of our pre-lit trees. I had a little mom-guilt over that one. This year, with Mama passing just a few weeks ago, I'm not sure any of us feel like doing much of anything festive. Mostly we're all trying to talk ourselves into making it to Winter Solstice, only because it means we can start daily adding minutes to the amount of sun-light we get. But then....I start to think about the little home-made ornaments each of my children have made throughout the years, and my heart feels the tug to go ahead and break out the boxes so I can re-visit those sweet memories.

1977. Mesa, Arizona. Our family had just moved from Bandelier, New Mexico after taking an early disability retirement from the National Park Service. He had been in an automobile accident in a work truck up in the Jemez Mountains. He'd hit black ice and the truck went off the road and down a steep embankment. "Ayers Curve". The location is actually printed on a park map. He suffered six broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a broken hip. His month's long recovery was followed by his early retirement. My parents chose to move with the three kids that still lived at home to Arizona where my maternal grand-parents lived. We'd always been long distances apart, and now after living in a mountain home with no neighbors and no relatives even in the same state, we would be moving to a city with grand-parents a short drive away!

I hopped down out of the cab seat of the U-haul to stretch my eleven-year-old legs before we made the final stretch into the valley of the sun. "Daddy? Can you get a tan in the night-time here?" It was July and hot as blazes. My dad grinned and hoisted me up "Hop back in Presh! We don't have much further to go!" Cactus, mesquite bushes, and that desert smell. The scent of the desert almost made the heat bearable. But. There was not one pine tree to be found. I'm pretty certain that's what Mama was thinking as we headed down the Superstition Freeway. "There are no pine trees...."

December approached. We had crammed most of our furnishings and belongings into a small storage unit, and moved into a tiny two-bedroom/one bathroom apartment while waiting for our new home to be built. Working for the National Park Service, and frequently moving, our parents had never owned a home before now. They had lovely visions of what our new home would be like. I only knew that they had moved me from the mountains to a city. I had no friends. I had no bedroom of my own (yet). I had to start a new school, (Jr. High at that!). I was a tween-ager. And....well....I was not too happy.

One day I came home from school and I saw a little pine tree on the end-table by the couch that also served as my bed each night. The tree couldn't have been more than 2 feet tall. I asked my mother what it was there for. She smiled a huge smile and said "It's our Christmas tree!" My face fell. I was devastated. "WHAT?!" "Mother! This can't be true!" I started to cry. Crying came easily to me at this age, but I felt terribly justified in shedding tears over this. "You can't ruin Christmas with having just a tiny tree like THIS!" I bawled. "It's already the worst Christmas EVER! And now you've made it extra horrible with this stupid TREE!" I would have run to my room and slammed the door and thrown myself onto my bed in hysterics, but my bed was in a storage unit a few miles away, and the only bedrooms available were my parents, or my two brother's with their bunk-beds, and I sure didn't want to throw my fit in there. So I just sat defeatedly on the couch/bed and pouted.

"Sweetie." she said softly, sitting next to me, and putting her arm around my slumped shoulders. "This isn't just a regular tree. This is a living tree. It's in a pot with dirt and has all of its roots still intact. We are going to plant it when we get into our new home! You'll see! It'll be taller than you or me or even the house someday, and it will be wonderful! I made sure it's a variety that can thrive down here in the hot desert." I looked up at her and then over to the tiny tree. Then I snuggled down into the crook of her arm and let her hug me. One of those good long Mama-hugs, that told me without saying anything more that everything was going to be alright. Even if it didn't make sense to me at the moment, it would be alright.

That Christmas I got black-faced digital watch with a black velvet band. I was so enchanted with it that I wore the battery out in less than a month from pressing the little knob on the face of it to see it's red digital numbers glow during film-time in class, or late at night when I was lying on my bed (couch). Daddy made his famous bon-bon candy, and because he made those I knew this year he was pretty happy, and not spending too much time missing his own Mama who had passed in December.

We lived in that apartment for a year. The home-builder went bankrupt and the house they kept promising to build never got built. My mother showed up to the model home one day, and announced she had VA Financing and would be purchasing the model instead. Somehow she came home with the keys to it that very day. (She did this with a few purchases in her lifetime, but those are different stories for a different time). The day finally came that we visited the storage unit for the final time. Loaded everything up and moved into our new home on Revere Dr. That tiny tree came with us. Mama stood out front and surveyed the house and the yard. She pointed to where the tiny tree would be planted. "Here." she softly said, her jaw firm yet with a smile.

From a mere 2-ft scrawny living "Christmas Tree". To a statuesque symbol of strength, hope, and our mother's love and intuition.

Just a few short weeks before our mother passed, I was wandering through the nearly empty aisles of the plant nursery at our local Lowe's. Being so late in the season I figured (rightly so) there would be next to nothing left, but wanted to have one last hurrah before everything shut down until next Spring. A few boxwoods here....some arborvitae there....wait....what?....it can't be....two pinon pine trees?! WHAT?! I took my cell phone out of my purse. Dialed Mama's cell..."Mama! Can you believe I'm at Lowe's and there are TWO! TWO PINON PINE TREES?!" "Do you want one of them?!" I could hear her smile in her voice, "Oh Honey! Of COURSE I do!" "Okay. I'm going to buy both of them. One for me and one for you. I'll have one of the boys come with me and we'll plant it where you want it." "Oh of course Honey! That'll be wonderful!"

The tree I had set aside for Mama never went into her yard. It was just a few days later she went into the hospital to be treated for pneumonia. The next week went she went back to the hospital, it would be the last time. When the funeral director asked what sort of flowers we wanted to have displayed at her funeral, I looked at her and said. "No flowers. Just pine boughs." She said she'd do what she could. She made a few calls around. "Unfortunately, because of the time of year, everyone is out of pine right now, I'm so sorry." "Oh, it's okay....we'll figure something out."

The day of Mama's funeral, we gathered the photos we'd be displaying at her viewing, grabbed a couple of table-cloths and headed out the door. There. Right there on the porch was the pinon pine tree that I had intended to plant for her. We packed it up into the car and brought it to the church, and placed it near the head of her casket. Perfect.

Because if there were any other religion that my mother ever believed in, it would be the worship of trees.

I don't know if my little pinon tree will survive. I hope and pray it does. But if it doesn't that's okay too. What is most important to me is that the lessons my mother taught me survive. They will survive by how I live my life and by how I teach my children and grand-children. That the power of knowing that a huge tree cut down for a mere few day's pleasure, is nothing compared to the glorious living thing that lives on for generations. Deeply rooted in the ground that her family once lived. Years of swimming, drive-way basketball, car-port ping-pong, and sitting on the porch swing surrounded by the heady scent of honeysuckle.

A tree is not just a tree.