Letters To My Boys

Dear Boys...

Today was a pretty big day for you guys. We had to say good bye to this old tree.

This tree has been the first thing that we have seen when we looked out that front window every day for as long as we all can remember.

You decided to pull up some chairs and watch step by step what would happen to that old tree. Jack, you probably had the hardest time with it. That tree has meant a lot to you particularly over the years.

When you were a baby, we used to have picnics in that yard with Miss Paula and Jonah and we would put a blanket right under the shade of that tree.

When you started walking, it was a great tree to hide behind when we played in that yard.

It was the tree that marked the halfway mark when you started running and had to go tag something and then run back.

As you grew older, and started playing wiffle ball in the front yard, you always dreamed of being able to hit that tree with a wiffle ball.

You finally could hit the tree and then anything you hit past the tree was a homerun.

That old tree has seen a LOT of wiffle ball games in its lifetime. Wiffle ball games, football games, Easter Egg hunts. It has watched you walk to school, walk home from school, and past it on your way to the backyard pool across the street.

You learned how to ride a bike in front of that tree. That tree has watched all of you boys play together in the front yard...arguing, giggling, and growing up.

As Ben watched the tree trimmers cut section by section of the tree down today, he looked at me and said, "Mommy, it's just like the tree in our favorite book!"

And it did. It reminded me of the years that we have spent with that tree and how much it has given us....and how we really haven't given it much in return.