We have a new tree in our front yard—a small but sturdy black tupelo (nyssa sylvatica), a native species that replaces the river birch (betula nigra) that grew too big, brittle and invasive. Even though it is early Advent and the branches are bare, it looks noble with its neat skirt of fresh, dark mulch.
It went in just two days before I headed to Florida to visit my sister and help her prepare to leave the house of our childhood and move in with her daughter an hour south. This will be the first time my sister has lived elsewhere than our home town since 1962. She is losing her sight and it is becoming too much for her to manage on her own.
Her daughter, my niece, lives an hour south and she and her husband proactively bought a home with a makeshift mother-in-law’s wing. My sister’s new digs have a small bedroom, full bath and a sitting room. Her bedroom window looks out onto a small lake (which she can still see partially) and the bathroom has an outside door onto the back porch which can function as a private entrance if need be. It is about as ideal a situation as one could hope for, but it is still not the home she has known for 60 years.
My sister is not only being replanted into a new house, but a new community. She will have to find a new church to attend, make new friends and find new doctors. She will be sharing a home with others beside herself for the first time in many decades, so there is that unknown as well. Because of her diminishing eyesight, she will not be able to learn her way around this new community nor will she have the independence of driving and doing what she wants.
Our new tree will produce a strong tap root once established, but getting this particular species moved from a nursery and settled in a new location can be dicey because of the tap root. It’s easier this time of year because the weather has sent the roots into dormancy. It will need a little water, but can pretty much ride out the winter before beginning to anchor itself into its new home this spring.
My sister doesn’t have that luxury, but she does have a community of support. My niece will be able to drive her back to doctor’s appointments until she can find new doctors. Her friends are close enough to drive down to visit. I’m getting her a membership to a local botanical garden so that she and my niece can go and have a surrogate garden to enjoy, maintenance-free. But it’s still going to be hard. It’s already hard. My sister has been slowly sifting through decades of material and memories, including the death of her other child in his 30s and later one of her grandchildren in his 20s. She has already endured enough loss for a lifetime.
The house on North Fernwood Drive holds lots of memories for me as well, good, bad and ugly. I lived there for 13 years of my childhood, much of which were under the influence of a perennially-drunken father and an emotionally-distant mother. I dread going back there even though there’s more than 40 years of distance since I occupied a bedroom there. I’m glad in many ways that it will be excised from our family soon. That said, I’m returning not just to help my sister, but to help myself.
When the opportunity to fly to Florida for five days presented itself, I knew intuitively that it was important to go—not just as a support to my sister, but as an opportunity for closure for me. I need to say a proper goodbye to the house and the memories. It would normally be in my nature to avoid dredging up all those old memories and the uncomfortable feelings that go with them, but I’m learning to face those discomforts more and more as they provide pathways to discovery, growth and healing.
All trees have a lifespan, just like other living species. Some can be moved successfully when they’re young, but the more established a tree becomes, the harder it is to move. Even palm trees, with tight shallow roots, can be moved in their older age, but they still have to adapt to new soils and new light conditions. Even under the best of replanting conditions, some just don’t survive the move.
I hope our new tree buds and blooms bountifully this spring. I hope my sister settles in successfully, but I don’t expect her to thrive and neither does she. Every memento that doesn’t make the move is a severed root, unseen and lifeless beneath the surface. But with a little care and nurture, my sister can grow new roots—not deep, but enough to sustain her—as she replants herself into this new and last era of her life.