First Place: Beloved Ones

Yesterday, I had to unearth the four 1 x 2 foot stepping stones that for your entire childhood, made a path through the grass from our home to our car. It felt like a desecration.

 It was a task borne of necessity—not an undertaking I chose. A worker had arrived unexpectedly to remove three tree stumps (ash, cedar, and elm) from our property, and the cedar stump could only be accessed by displacing the stones.

 The stones were safe spots to tread when you played “the grass is lava.” They became your tightrope as you strode high above the crowds of ladybugs and ants you imagined watching you. You invented obstacle courses for the walkway, challenging your strength and balance by hopping on one foot or traveling backwards. You made pronouncements from atop the cedar stump, greeting Happy Squirrels and Buzz-buzz Bees and Robin Friends you saw in the yard. You composed extemporaneous songs about your Sleepy-Time Tigers (your constant companions since you were a baby), your cats, and the joy of being alive as you danced around your makeshift stage, often hanging on to the nearby chain-link fence with one hand so you did not fall off. This was your realm, and you ruled.

 I dreaded disturbing the pavers from their resting places. They had lain in the yard next to our house for the past thirteen years, and I found many excuses why I could not remove them. First of all, your dad was at work, and his hurried instructions over the phone seemed daunting to me; I was irritated that he was not here to handle this intrusion. This was not my job: I did all the indoor chores and left the outdoor ones to him—that was our unspoken agreement. I had rarely used a shovel before, and definitely not for this purpose. What if I damaged the pavers? In addition, I had a client soon and feared showing up dirty and sweaty from the exertion. Most importantly, my carpal tunnel symptoms resulting from six months of unceasing overuse were finally healing. I could not bear the return of that pain.

 I watched the man operating the Bobcat as he prepared to remove the final traces of one of the other stumps—the elm that had graced the side of our property for at least ninety years.

 The elm was important to our family. It offered shade to many plants and kids under its canopy. It provided a home for the wildlife you often watched with delight as they scampered, hopped, and fluttered among its branches and around its trunk. It withstood many storms during its lifetime, until that fateful day last May. The elm was felled overnight by strong winds. Neighbors texted us photos of our beloved tree, with one of its three scaffold branches that formed the canopy split and laying parallel to the ground, forming a four foot high elevated bridge spanning the width of our backyard.

 We weren’t there when it happened. We were in Memphis with you, bearing witness to other pictures—from your latest brain MRI. We viewed the ruination of your own neural tree. Your oncologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital told us that yes, the area of concern first noticed in January was an active tumor, not just scar tissue. You would need (yet another) surgery to biopsy the tumor. Until then, we could go home. The hospital would contact us once it was scheduled. It’s unfathomable how busy a pediatric neurosurgeon’s calendar is.

We returned home, dazed, to a surreal scene. One of the elm’s main branches, too large in circumference for one person to completely wrap their arms around it, was still connected to the  trunk of the tree and was propped up like a balance beam on the fences at opposite sides of our property. The smaller branches blocked the stairway to our back porch, extending onto our roof and into the neighbor’s yard. We had to push our way through green branches crowded with leaves in order to reach the rear door to our house.

We fervently hoped the elm would survive this trauma. We consulted with an arborist to see if it could withstand the loss of such a large limb, but they could not guarantee preservation until the branch was removed and the trunk examined more closely. The wind storm damaged many trees in our town, so it might be awhile before the crew could come. Once again, we would have to wait.

 In the meantime, our back lawn transformed into a thicket playground. Birds and squirrels still nested among the sideways limbs. Sharp-eyed robins hunted worms exposed by multiple impact points of secondary branches with the ground. Chipmunks, squirrels and mice raced along the now-horizontal length of the largest limb, while rabbits, possums, raccoons, and the occasional neighborhood cat took shelter in the new leafy ground cover. So much life in this microcosm!

 Though you were nearly a teenager, you were fascinated, crawling around underneath the tiny forest, creating stories and songs to keep you company. For me, it evoked memories of your princess phase during your first recurrence when you were five. I envisioned you, once again, as Sleeping Beauty conversing with woodland creatures.

We found a way to travel safely past the fallen bough, shades of our efforts within the hospital system twelve years ago. When you were originally diagnosed with anaplastic ependymoma two weeks shy of your first birthday, we battled bureaucracy, medical mismanagement, and pointless hospital regulations. Our rallying cry was: “We have our machetes, and we are not afraid to use them!”

 We always cleared a path for you.

With the tree still upended, and us hanging on to the possibility it could survive the loss of a major limb, we again made the pilgrimage to Memphis with you. This time, you underwent your fourth craniotomy, in hopes the gods of medicine could biopsy (maybe even resect?) the new tumor that had taken root in the cavernous space of your fourth ventricle, an area reserved for cerebrospinal fluid—not aggressive neoplasms. After your procedure, the neurosurgeon told us the tumor was not life-threatening, in his opinion. Although it did not look aggressive, he could not resect it without harming healthy brain tissue. He would not. Be operating. Again. The remaining mass would (hopefully) be a very slow-growing tumor in an empty space that could accommodate its presence, much like a tree stump you can maneuver around in the yard.

 A week later, while you recovered at St. Jude from the ravages of brain surgery, the tree doctor called after his inspection and said he needed to remove the entire tree, not just the broken branch. The integrity of the trunk was compromised to the point that it could not survive. That same day, we also found out the surgeon was wrong in his assessment. The pathology revealed your newest tumor was a high-grade glioma—very malignant, and always fatal. We came home devastated by these dual diagnoses.

 There was no tree to provide shade for us that summer. There were no more fantasies of a princess chatting with woodland creatures, kissing her prince, and living happily ever after.

 There were no leaves to rake into piles that fall, and no one to jump in them—you were confined to a wheelchair by that point.

There was no shelter from storms that winter. Not long after the groundhog saw its shadow, we questioned whether all our efforts to keep you alive were sustainable: your body was unable to move, and my body was pushed to the point of breaking in caring for you. I cared only for you. I pushed aside my loss of sleep, loss of appetite, loss of income, loss of feeling in my hands to stave off the loss of you.

 There was no comfort in green shoots and flowering buds that spring. There were gaping holes where you, our beloved daughter, and the elm, our beloved tree, had once flourished.

*

 Yesterday, I approached the man grinding the stump with his Bobcat, to ask if he could move the pavers for me. While I waited for a break in his activity to speak with him, I watched the circular saw as it swept side-to-side, perpendicular to the ground. It rendered the base of our beautiful elm, forever removing the last vestiges of its once-towering presence in our lives.

 That stump, nearly six feet in diameter, would have made a great stage for your impromptu performances of songs, dances and dramas with friends. Now, the metal teeth of the stump grinder rived the wood until it looked like shredded chicken. The sight of this wreckage, eerily reminiscent of the incision scar from your final craniotomy, activated the mama bear within me, and I knew I couldn’t hand off this duty of digging to someone else. I grabbed the shovel with the funny-looking V-shaped notch in its blade, and prized up one corner of the first rectangle.

It did not want to let go. It hugged the earth where it had lain for all these years, cemented into place by the constancy of our footfalls each day as we hurried off on our next expedition and came home again with more tales to tell.

One foot atop the blade, I carefully worked the shovel under each of the four corners of the rectangle in turn until its hold loosened, then levered the slab until it flipped up on its long edge like the lid of a hope chest, revealing wriggling worms and hurrying ant colonies, all busy in the course of daily living. I cried as I cradled the stone in my arms and gently laid it to the side where it would not be damaged by the stump grinder. I repeated the process three more times, discovering more life under each of the cool pebbled surfaces of the slabs. I was confronted with the ceaseless activity that continues in death’s wake, and wished for more time, more adventures, more chances to traverse the stones with you.

*

 Today, several laborers arrive with a backhoe instead of a Caterpillar. They break up any largish pieces of wood they find, and spread the mulch generated by the prior day’s efforts. I stand like a mourner, graveside, watching as they mound soil and tamp it down with the digging bucket to create a level surface. A young man on the crew joins me and asks about my interest in watching them. I share some of your story with him, and the parallel fates of you and the tree. He is compassionate and introspective, labeling it as a “synchronicity” between you and the elm. He suggests that the recently plowed areas are the perfect place for your dad and me to grow something in memory of you.

I tell him your name—Willa—and your love for weeping willows. He tells me that a willow tree cannot be safely located so close to the house due to its extensive root system, but perhaps we can find a willow bush instead. He and I exchange gratitudes—for bearing witness and sharing stories—along with hugs and introductions. We watch together as the other workers finish their parts of the job, then he begins to scatter the grass seed and spread the protective layer of straw. His task is to help new life take root.

The clouds begin to weep with me as the workers gather their tools and pack up their trucks. The sweet young man with kind eyes and soft voice who took time to speak with me comes over once more to say goodbye. He offers his condolences on your death. He wishes me comfort and peace, and encourages me to plant whatever makes me smile. I thank him and agree, saying that I’ll probably sprinkle some of your ashes there as well. He thinks that will be good too.

As I watch them drive away, the rain increases in intensity to a downpour, forming rivulets that wash away some of the grass seed before it ever has a chance to germinate. I cry for all the things you accomplished, and all those forever left undone. I sob for the moments we shared, and the ones I now experience without you. I wail for all the pain you faced in your short life, and hope that it was equaled by joy. I pray my presence in your life supported you in your journey, and that it was enough.

Sometimes, my tears appear like brief summer storms, with no warning and often gone again before the sidewalk is completely wet. On other occasions they are like thunderstorms, preceded by dark, gloomy skies, then scary in their volume and vehemence with violently whipping winds. Both types of release offer the promise of change, but this change— your absence— is the most difficult one I have ever faced.

I think again of my newly met friend, the young man called Le’Man (acquaintance seems too aloof a term for the moment we’ve shared, however brief). Finding friends came so easily to you in all the places you went on your trips beyond the stepping stones. Your natural impulse was that of the mystics: “Where two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst of them” and “Namaste, I recognize the divinity in you.” You would have liked Le’Man, too, I think. I looked up the origin of his name after he left: Beloved One. That feels like another synchronicity with you as well, my beloved one.       

You were named for Willa Cather. The day I learned I was pregnant with you (after ten years of trying) I saw one of her quotes on a wall plaque at my fertility specialist’s office that read: “Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” She also wrote, “some things you learn best in calm, some in storm.” Your name means Strong-willed Warrior Woman, and your resilience and ability to weather any storm matched that of a willow tree, bending to survive forces that would topple an elm, and sending roots out in a wide wake well beyond the foliage. Those of us who were fortunate enough to sit under your canopy still sense your presence. I silently thank Le’Man for being with me today as I grieved. It reminds me that even though I feel alone in my bereavement, I am forever joined—to you, to other beings, to nature, to life. I will try to remember to reach my roots deep into the earth to ground myself, and spread my branches wide to connect to those around me and tell them about you.

-Jody Held

Jody Held channels prose, poetry, songs, storytelling, collage baskets, and choreography when the muse demands--because if you don't use your gifts, they're marked "Return the Sender". This is her first foray into writing contests. Her current work centers around grief, death, and connection--she's writing what she knows.