Since returning to Wheatland, I have resumed walking in the cemetery. Some people find this strange, but I welcome the solitude. The residents there are very quiet. Mostly, I walk there in order to be in the presence of trees, which are few and far between in this arid landscape. I easily relate to them as I stroll along the cemetery “streets”. I am saddened by the exposed trunks of the evergreens. Their lower branches have been removed from the ground up to at least six feet. I presume this is done in order that lawn mowers can move easily beneath them and/or to prevent their growing over the tombstones. Sap drips from the wounds created by the more recent severing of limbs, like blood and tears. There are mainly Blue Spruce, Ponderosa Pine, and Western Red Cedar interspersed with deciduous Green Ash. At least a third of the trees have dead and broken branches caused by the severe wind. Most likely, much of the damage was a result of the brutal snowstorm that arrived here in mid-March dumping over 30 inches of snow on the area. I love the sight of a full grown Blue Spruce with its lowest branches gracefully sweeping the ground beneath it; but this is not to be found at the cemetery. Many homeowners too, spoil the natural beauty of these evergreens, ignorant of the wrong that they are doing.
As I walk among these broken, damaged trees, I often feel it is I who am the ghost, walking silently among the dead. I, too, have been broken in many places. Like the trees, I am still standing, still breathing, still enduring this thing we call life. Walking in the cemetery also helps me to remember each and every day that life is impermanent. The trees will eventually die and go on to become something else. Perhaps they will remain as a snag, offering shelter to numerous bird and insect species. They may be cut into boards and become the frame for a home, or be made into furniture, or shredded into mulch where they will become nutrients for other trees and plants. I have recently been comforted in knowing that I can be composted when I pass on. I will request in my will to be wrapped loosely in a simple cloth – no coffin or embalming fluid for me! Then I can still exist among trees, offering myself to them as nutrients. I want an entire forest to be planted around me. I will return to the earth, to give back in some small way, all that it has given to me.
