The Family Tree

I have about a million rambling texts, short stories and other nonsense taking up space on my hard drive and on a few discs. I will be sharing them from time to time with people who read this blog. Here is one that is pertinent to me at the moment. I actually wrote it two years ago but it is something I have been thinking about lately. So here for your enjoyment, pleasre, critique or whatever you want to do with this story, I present:

The Family Tree

When I was a boy we used to camp a lot in an area called Hole In The Wall. It was an awesome place with several shallow caves and very unique rock features. A few months ago I was in the area where I grew up and I drove past the road that headed out to the mountains and to Hole In The Wall. Just passing that road brought back a flood of memories, it felt as though I was almost in a dream.

I could hear all of us kids laughing and playing. I could feel the crisp cool air of the mountains and the smell of the scrub pine and juniper. I could smell the campfire and the extra thick bacon that one of my uncles had the butcher make for him. He always brought this bacon on camping trips and he would always have enough for all of us. To this day I can't eat thick sliced bacon without thinking of him.

I remembered there was a large tree that had been struck by lightning near our favorite camp site. It was dead and snapped in half about 10 feet from the ground. The break wasn't clean and the top of the tree was still connected to the main trunk. We would always climb up that tree and sit on it. One time one of my other uncles carved all of our names into that tree. I remember watching him as he was carving our names, he seemed so quiet and deliberate. Most of the kids had grown bored and ran off and found something else to do. I was curious for some reason because of how determined and deliberate he was. When he was done he seemed inwardly pleased. Not exuberant, not boastful, just something inside him seemed to be satisfied.

We camped at this place quite often and as soon as we got camp set up all of the kids would run down to "our tree". It was always still there and always still had our names on it. I am not sure what exactly we thought was going to happen to that tree, there was no logging in the area, it was very remote and few people camped there. However every time we gathered together to go camping all of us kids would start speculating if "our tree" was still there. So every camp out it became a ritual for the kids and even some of the grown ups to run to our tree and check on it.

My uncle passed away quite unexpectedly and in a terrible way about two years or so after he had carved all of our names in that tree. We didn't camp much that year and when we did, no one wanted to go see our tree. My uncle's death had a profound impact on the entire family. The following year we started camping at an area a few miles away from our old camp spot. Our tree just became too painful to be around I guess.

As I grew up I continued to camp in that area on my own. I made several trips to our tree and even shared it and the good memories with a few people. I know that some of my cousins did the same. Less and less often however did the entire family get together and go camping. Eventually as is inevitable I guess, we all went our separate ways and led our own lives.

Time indeed has a way of healing all wounds, I look back on my uncle with so much fondness. The pain isn't really there so much, just a lot of great memories. When my uncle did pass away however, he seemed to take something of the spark of our family with him, some part of the family cohesiveness. The entire family was just never quite the same after that.

I wonder now whatever happened to that old tree. I wonder if it is still there, if it got burned up in a wildfire that swept that area once. I can still see that tree in my mind, maybe someday I will try and locate it. I wonder what I would do if I did find the tree, maybe apologize to it for leaving it alone for so many years, for denying it the laughter it had grown accustomed to. Maybe a family is like a forest, a large group of trees, each one distinct but related, a part of a whole. Each one adding to the beauty and complexity of the family. Trees can grow so old, I wonder if they grow lonely as well. I wonder if there are other trees I need to tend to, to apologize to, to nurture.

Otter 8/05