Good Bye Old Friend

We recently said goodbye to an old friend cut-down in the prime of his life. The friend is the oak tree you see outside the window of our office in this picture. If I'd known he (I'm assuming it was a "he" it never expressed a pronoun preference to us) was going to get the ax, I would have taken better pictures.

You can probably imagine how much we love trees here, particularly the oak variety. This fine specimen was our favorite thing about our office space. It almost felt like we worked in a treehouse. It sheltered us from the wind and the morning sun. It blocked our view of the bland, ugly building next door, which has mirrored windows, so you can't even see what those people are doing over there.

The tree was home to many squirrels, birds, and, I would imagine, many bugs and other creatures, although I never saw any. One resident of the tree was a plastic bag like you get at the store when they ask, "paper or plastic," that was caught high in the branches right outside our window. I wanted to get it down, but it was too high. So we came to accept it as part of the tree family. We even had a name for it; "Damned Plastic Bag," which we would say whenever we saw it. So the day they took down, our oak we were shocked.

There was no warning.

No notice from the landlord. No chance for a last-minute reprieve or stay of execution. The executioners, I mean tree service, must have gotten there at daybreak because, by the time I arrived at work, our friend Mr. O. Tree was in pieces on the ground.

I was stunned. There was no going back. No undoing, it no, "wait a minute, let's discuss this." It was now firewood lying in the parking lot. I walked over to the stump and looked at all those rings. I didn't try to count, but there were a lot of them. A lot of Springs and Falls that oak ushered in.

A lot of shade and shelter were provided.

And beauty.

And now it's gone...