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The Fillmore Tree

          When I was on the phone with my mom a few days before Thanksgiving Break, she told me that the tree in our old house’s yard got cut down by the current owners. The news shocked and deeply saddened me because I had so many memories of playing around that tree growing up, in my eyes it was iconic to the look of the house and property, and it was also just one of the most beautiful and impressive trees I have ever seen in its own right. 

The tree was located in the yard on the right front side of our little old yellow house. Sometime before I remember, my dad attached a child swing to one of its lower branches, and I loved spending Saturday mornings with him pushing me in the swing. He would always do the thrilling ‘underdog’ trick with me where he pushed the swing up until he could run forward underneath it, and I went so high and fast that it always felt like I was flying. In the fall, my dad, sister, and I would rake up the leaves the tree dropped and do cannonballs into the pile. I feel like this tree was a central part to my childhood upbringing and memories. As I grew up, the tree was always there to welcome me home. Even after we moved to the next street over, I would drive by my old house on the way home and remember how much fun we had there. 

The tree’s width would have probably taken about two tall people’s arm span to wrap around the entire trunk, and it was the tallest tree in the neighborhood. Our old house is situated on a hill, so when I would walk up and down Fillmore on our family walks, it felt even larger as we approached it. Its branches truly looked like arms and fingers reaching up into the sky as far as they could go. In the summer its green leaves made it look like a living hot air balloon about to lift off into the air. 

When I got home, I wanted to see this for myself. We embarked on our usual walking route, and when we got to the Fillmore Street hill, I looked towards our old house. It was true, and just a stump cut down right to the grass marked where the glorious tree used to be. My mom said the owners told her the tree was dying, and it was better to cut it down sooner rather than later. I do not know how the eye spots disease in trees so quickly, but I think something else was up--they thought it was in the way, were afraid it would fall on the house, or something like that. Regardless, now it exists only in my memory, and I wish I had taken a picture of it before. The incident made me think of how we often just remove things as soon as they become inconvenient or slightly compromised, and when it comes to nature, we will never get such things back.

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