Valley of Life | Online Memorial Blog

My uncle has a magnificient backyard — perfect grass, lush and green; flowerbeds, well-kept and always smelling of fresh barkdust; huge evergreens that form a wall in the distance, protecting his home from the bustle of city life. And yet, with all these beautiful spectacles, if you were to stand on his back porch and look out into the yard, your attention would immediately be drawn to the lone tree growing in the middle of his lawn. And that’s exactly the way he intended it to be.

My uncle lost his sister during the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. As any brother would, he grieved the loss of his sister deeply, and wanted a tangible way to cherish her memory. Since he lives in the Pacific Northwest, all the way across the country from his sister’s grave in New York, he needed a way to easily keep her memory close.

So he planted a tree.

Planting a tree is just one of the many ways to honor the memory of a loved one. If you’ve lost someone who made home far away, or perhaps there’s no body to bury or ashes to spread, planting a tree close by can be a very meaningful and healing decision. Today, standing 10 feet tall and nearly 8 years old, the intentionality of the tree in my uncle’s backyard is unmistakeable. And the memory of his sister lives on not only in New York, but on the other side of the country as well.

[photo: mayang.com]

Tags: Remember a Loved One, tree

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Grief / Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.