Last Tree in the Orchard

Ladies,

I came across this thing I wrote a few months ago, when I was still clinging to the hope of saving my marriage. Just thought I would share...

There was an apple tree in the backyard of the home where I grew up in Riverton, Wyoming. It was a green apple tree that I was always told was the last standing from an orchard that once stood where my childhood home now occupies. The tree must have been there since before the turn of the century, as our home was one of the first built in the town in 1910.

As a child, I recall spending lazy Sundays in the summer lying in a crocheted hammock under that beautiful tree. Even though it would be a hot day, the shade from the tree provided a welcome respite from the hot sun. I would lay there for hours as a child…listening to the wind blow through the leaves, rocking gently, maybe reading a book, sleeping until the loud slam of the old, wooden back door would wake me from my comfortable rest. My mom telling me dinner was ready. A special Sunday roast.

I think I felt happy. At least I know I felt safe and secure. I knew where I belonged. I knew I was loved and I had hope and anticipation for my future and all the things I would become. The tree was my shelter.

Years later, someone would join me in that hammock, under that old apple tree. His arms wrapped around me and the skin of our sweaty legs touching. We couldn’t get close enough. A perfect fit. We would rock and laugh and lay quiet, napping. He had become my security, my shelter, my home. I was accepted and loved. I didn’t have to pretend. I didn’t have to be anything I didn’t want to be. I didn’t have to feel like a part of me was missing any longer. I was safe. I was loved at last for who I was. The feeling of acceptance was intoxicating. It must have been what I was waiting for.

That tree is gone now. It died after I had left home for good and started my own home. My mom cried as she watched the workers cut it down. She was that way with trees. Left in its place is a stump that my dad transformed into a base of a table…my mom’s idea, I’m sure, except nobody wants to sit there in the middle of the hot yard on that table, eating their corn on the cob while the sun beats down. So the trunk sits. A reminder of the life it once lived. The dreams it watched come true. The hope. The laughter. The joy it witnessed. The tears, too.

I miss that tree. I didn’t know I did until today. I want it back, along with my dear mother and my husband. I know that it is not possible to get my mom or the tree back. No wonder I feel so desperate to have my love back…my best friend.

I want another chance to create something real for myself. Like the apple tree, the only conceivable way for me to continue in this life I have created is in a new form. The leaves are gone. My security and stability stripped from my branches. I must continue, bare and vulnerable to the harsh elements of the world. I must find a way to maintain my strength and beauty, despite what this year has done. I must find my own security…the kind that only comes from within myself.