Presents opened, toys played with, coffee cake eaten. Then, ornaments carefully taken off the tree and packed away. We planted the tree outside the front window, an ornament to a happy house in a new city. When we moved to a close-by city, I would periodically drive to the old house. My marriage was falling apart and I needed to visit the place where we'd been so brave and excited to move to. A new city in another state. While my life was changing, I made sure the tulips I'd planted were coming up and the curtains I'd bought were still hung. But mostly I wanted to make sure the tree was still there. It was.
I hadn't driven by my old house for a few years and I decided to look again today. What?! The pine tree was gone! Uprooted. Was it saved and planted somewhere else? I knew I was grasping at straws. How could they do that? The tall strong tree with its sprawling roots of my long ago happy nuclear family thoughtlessly taken out, chopped into a million pieces and thrown in a dumpster. I felt angry. I wanted to knock on the door and tell them they had no right to destroy my memory like that.
It was ugly. It was barren. It was hard to breathe. I could only grip my steering wheel and leave. I'm left with a different memory now, like seeing a person who has died but wanting to remember them when they were full of life. I want my roots grabbing the earth. I want my old memory back.
