The tree that wouldn't let go

Walking off the 18th green at the Lido Golf Club last Sunday, stripped down to shorts and a short-sleeved shirt on an average 60-degree January afternoon, I had another typically brilliant idea. Since it was throw-out-the-Christmas-tree day, I would douse it in hair spray, nail polish remover, lead paint and bug spray and set it on fire in our driveway. If Al Gore is as right about global warming as he insists, the Viking funeral I imagined would not only honor our departed tree but also extend Long Island’s golf season to 12 months.
I didn’t, of course.
Instead I spent 45 minutes and burned through two Sawzall batteries trying to get the bottom four inches of the stump off. Collecting and decorating our Christmas tree stumps is a family tradition that goes back to the 1970s. I don’t know how my father had the patience to do it every year with a hand saw. I guess people just did it that way.
This year it was especially slow going, since the stump — and the tree growing out of it — was still very much alive, even after a month of standing in our living room next to a radiator. At one point I switched to a circular saw — at almost 9 at night, so I hereby apologize to my neighbors — and then hammered a flathead screwdriver into the cut. No good. The handle shattered and the metal shaft bent at a right angle. This tree wasn’t ready to let go.
Finally, using the claw end of the hammer, I managed to free the screwdriver and pry the stump off. It had been held on by a defiant knot that was reinforced by several ounces of sap.
I told my wife about the fight the tree had put up. She looked sad, and I knew why. She felt sad for the tree, and I did, too, and I wondered, science and logic aside, about what the tree had gone through. After all, it was a living organism with circulatory and respiratory systems. It responded to external stimuli. It gave off an aroma.
But it did not have a central nervous system, at least not as I understand the term. It had no consciousness or opinions. It knew nothing of species or class or jealousy. It had no phobias or mood swings or estrangements.
The tree had — has — a spirit, which is just as eternal but not as corruptible as a soul. Nothing could have given so much and not been a part of God. My little daughter loved the tree, almost as much as her grandfather’s trains, which ran almost constantly for a month in an oval around the tree. She liked the smell of the branches and that there were candy canes hidden within. She told everyone at school on Monday about her tree leaving.
The tree, by now certainly headed for tree heaven, such as it is, will continue to give once it gets there. I imagine it decorated with red bows and tinsel, in the nurseries of young children who left their families too early, providing shade to dogs who served faithfully and memories of home for dead soldiers.
It represented a great month in the life of my daughter, and I hope they appreciate it as much as we did.
This Christmas we visited some of my cousins, who I see far too rarely. Eight years ago, one cousin gave birth to a son with Down syndrome, and after a few hectic years of almost monthly surgeries, her husband told me that life has become more serene.
Their son was born with two holes in his heart, which continues to murmur, but now his visits to the doctor are mostly for routine maintenance. Today he is completely vocal, attends public schools in Pennsylvania full-time and, like every other 8-year-old, loves Disney movies. (His mother was dressing him one morning when he folded his arms, scowled and said, “Don’t you turn your back on me, Scar!” It’s a line from “The Lion King,” they later realized.)
The boy’s also got a gun for an arm, as I learned when we played catch. His father said his specialty is carnival games. “You know those ring tosses?” he said. “He’s money. And I think I know why: They’re pure luck, and at this point he doesn’t have just one guardian angel, he’s got a whole team of them. He must.”
And now that team has a tree.