Story #64: Silent Witness - A Guest Post by Graham Herbst, Nebraska Forest Service
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 my daughter Evelyn’s first year (spring of 2012), I helped with a tree planting at Metcalfe Park 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 once the construction was completed. Metcalfe Park has a few beautiful old zelkova trees that probably date back to the 1960s, 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 in the day when the girls stopped by to see how things looked in the park, it was that lone conifer that seemed like the perfect backdrop for a photo of my wife and our wobbly, chunky little 3-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 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 where we came back for new pictures of her as she grew up. It became that place very naturally, as if the place chose us and invited us back somehow. This fir tree is our silent witness, a family member reminding Sarah and me of how quickly these days go by. 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. With love and understanding at planting time, the tree thrives and grows much faster than Evelyn, which gives me much happiness along the way, just like my family does.
