The Giving Tree

I'm waiting for Reuben to get a room out of the ER at the hospital after he was taken again by ambulance with Jason to UCLA with a view to me spending the night in with him. 102.3 fever, HR 140+. {Edit: UTI and ear infection}. He's had a relapse after his hospital stay last week.

He's been vomiting and sad all day, much like I'd been feeling about the Giving Tree next door when I rushed out this morning to see it being torn apart. It's still there, in spirit or trunk but is a shadow of its former 60 year self. If you follow our journey, you'll know the delights it has given the boys and I through the seasons, the shining beckon of natural beauty along with the vacant lot flowers of yesterday, in an otherwise urban sprawl.

There were foot wide branches being sawn apart. I doubt the tree will ever recovery.

I took a few branches away to add to the boys' bedroom which has a glass wall, ironically having the idea over the weekend that I'd like to run branches across it. So part of the tree is still with us and here the branches and twigs are given a new home. The background here is the clear glass wall of their balcony and my little bit of our beloved Giving Tree. The leaves will eventually fall, the buds hoping for a future will die and the cycle of renewal will not come.

Did the neighbour never understand the beauty? I had thought this morning of bringing him over a few photographs of its beauty through the seasons, moments before I heard the sound of the chainsaws.

And ironically too I read The Giving Tree for the first time this week to the boys crying through the pages and being at one point unable to move through the words with the lump that sat in my throat.

These things affect me deeply and I'm quite tired of being a lone eco warrior at times, understanding the life force given by trees and in a neighborhood but a stone's throw from the airport, the necessity to maintain some oxygen in our air.

Leaving Callum with another neighbour and will then spend the night in the hospital with Reuben. Please keep him in your T&P or visit us here on FB for the latest.