“If you’re smart,” Chad confided as he stood with my husband apart from the rest of the family, “you’ll cut down that old snag before your wife gets attached to it.”
My husband regarded the tree. “Speaking from experience?”
Chad nodded. “By the time I got around to bringing it down, Julie wouldn’t let me. She said the tree had too much character.”
With that last bit of advice, Chad handed over the keys to our dream house while he and Julie moved on to pursue their own dreams in another town.
Standing sentry
The old snag stood sentry at the top corner of our six acres. She was a grand old thing, hollow clear through, host to animal nests and fledgling saplings she was sending up from her base. Her bark spiraled inward along a crack which ran the length of her trunk. One lone branch, reaching eastward, still sported enough leaves to feed herself and her young.
As our first year in our new home unfolded, the snag captured my imagination. How many years had she seen? Had lightening carved and curled her trunk? Where did she get the tenacity to stand when she was only a shell of what she once had been?
“I think I’ll cut down that old snag tree,” my husband announced one day.
I looked to the corner of the property. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It’s going to come down before long, anyhow. The next strong wind may blow it over.”
“She stood this long,” I countered. “Let’s let the snag stand or come down on her own.”
“She?”
“See the baby trees she sent up from her base?”
“But just look at it,” he said.
“I think she’s beautiful in her own way. She has …” I fished for the right word.
“Character,” we said simultaneously.
“Chad told me that if I were smart I’d cut that snag down before you became attached. Guess I wasn’t smart enough.”
Steadfast family legacy
As I frequently walked the property, occasionally I spotted a raccoon just before it disappeared into the hollow interior of the snag’s trunk. I admired the intrepidness of the tree. Against Midwestern spring storms highlighted by tornado force winds she mustered all her residual strength to remain steadfast. By now it was clear she existed only to nurture her new generation.
“The sky sure looks mean.” My husband studied the roiling clouds out the kitchen window.
In the middle of preparing dinner on a Sunday in June, I glanced absently at the darkening horizon. “Maybe it will blow through in time for you to play golf.”
But the storm had other ideas. Moving from the north, the torrential rain was dogged by hail and powerful winds. Down the road, a tornado damaged barns and farmhouses. We ushered the children to the safety of the basement.
In that serene stillness that lingers after a storm has passed, we emerged from the basement. The air was thick and damp, water stood ankle deep across the yard. Leaves were plastered against window screens. Going outside to check the animals in the barn, something caught my eye.
A family legacy
Of course, it was the old snag tree.
She lay on the ground, seemingly reaching toward the house. She fell in the windstorm and my son cried.
Approaching the snag we could see she indeed was hollow except for the bark that curled inward along the deep crack the length of her trunk. A nervous mouse, who had ridden the snag to the ground, ran back and forth within the trunk surveying the ruins. A squirrel nest had been jarred from their perches. The skeleton of a raccoon was of particular interest to my son. The stump looked like a large sandbox filled with wood dust. A myriad of insects burrowed in the red, damp sawdust.
It took a few days to cut the dead branches and haul them to the woodpile. I stood back and looked where the tree had stood for so long. The corner where she once kept watch surprisingly did not look empty. The saplings that had seemed small against the massive trunk now appeared tall, lush, and fragrant.
Despite the storm, she had left behind a family legacy, a heritage, a new life.
Storms of Life
Are you in the midst of a storm in your life? The end of my marriage was a storm that lasted years. The repercussions will be felt for generations. To help others navigate their single mom journey, I teamed up with Pam Farrel to write The Ten Best Decisions A Single Mom Can Make. Pam was raised by a single mom and has gone on to find victory in her life that has extended to her children and grandchildren. Find hope and healing with The Ten Best Decisions A Single Mom Can Make and with the 8-day devotional on You Version.
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