Most clichés hold a substantial amount of truth, even when we don’t want to acknowledge it. They are often cautionary, warning us not to get complacent about some aspect of life that we all face. The old saying about how quickly the time you have with your children passes is no exception, but we don’t want to hear that truth. As a new father, my daughter Evelyn’s first few years seemed to go on forever. It’s a time that is both challenging and rich with reward and “lifeness." The sleepless nights, the tears, the holiday celebrations, all the firsts, the hours spent quietly watching them awaken to the world. How could this time ever seem fleeting?
Trees are silent witnesses to the movement of our lives. They are there when we learn to swing on the playground. They hide us during games of tag until the streetlights turn on. When we take pictures for graduation and homecoming, they are behind us with arms outstretched like parents and siblings, blooming brightly for the camera.
In Evelyn’s first year (spring of 2012), I helped with a tree planting at Metcalfe Park in Omaha, which was near our house on Hamilton Street. The playground had received a major upgrade, and some new trees were the perfect way to finish the project. Metcalfe Park has a few beautiful, old zelkova trees that probably date back to the 1960’s, so I picked a few more to honor those veteran elm relatives, along with tree lilac, various oak species, Kentucky coffee tree, and white fir.
Later on the day of the planting, it was that lone conifer that seemed like the perfect backdrop for a photo of my wife and our wobbly, chunky little three-month-old and her amazing full head of curly hair. Since evergreen trees are full and wide at the base and often smaller at planting time than deciduous trees, it was the perfect scale for Evelyn to “stand” in front of (with some help from mom, of course). This was her local playground, and we knew that we would be spending a lot of time there in the coming years.
I never really decided that this would be the place we came back to for new pictures of Evelyn as she grew up. It became that place very naturally, almost like the place chose us and invited us back somehow. It was only a few years later that we moved to a different home further away, but the fir tree at Metcalfe Park will always be where we stop by for a new picture of the young lady we see all the time and the tree that we don’t see all that often anymore. The tree thrives and grows much faster than Evelyn and gives me much happiness along the way, just like my family.
