Imagine or Eleanor’s Charlie

We moved to a street shaded by cypress and sycamore trees and were happy. She especially loved the big cypresses, and, as a present, I sent for a wee sapling as a loving gift. She named it Charlie. Charlie grew strong and tall and outgrew pots and was a fine specimen of a tree. We gave Charlie the largest pot that we could find. When we went to move him, we found that he had grown through the bottom of the previous pot and his tap root had to be amputated to get him out of the ground.

We transplanted Charlie into a big corrugated metal can and, pretty quick, he went into shock and appeared disheartened and lifeless. There were other plants growing in the can—onions, some ivy, and one of the towering sycamores had dropped a seed which appeared to sprout nicely. As winter approached and Charlie was bare and unresponsive, we decided to leave him in the big can and hope for the best after vacillating whether to cut him down completely.

We had become attached to Charlie, and Debbie promised the comatose tree that, should he rise again, she would find a forever place for him to be planted in the ground where he could grow as much as he wanted—forever. Meanwhile, the fledgling sycamore that we named Eleanor, who had grown into a young thing right next to the dispirited Charlie, had shed her leaves right on time for her winter nap, so we had two sticks side-by-side in a can until spring.

Spring came and Eleanor woke up and wondered about Charlie. Their roots had grown close, and she had sensed life there. They had dreamed their tree dreams all winter until it was time to releaf in the spring and to show off their new growths above ground, but Charlie had not evidenced one sign of life. He was stubborn and hurt and didn’t trust this thing called life. In short, Charlie refused to wake up. Eleanor, the sycamore, awoke and urged the traumatized little cypress to give living another shot, and, slowly, Charlie tentatively sent some juice up to see what could be done about going green again.

“Look! Oh! look, look, look. There’s a little green sprout coming out of Charlie’s trunk. I believe he’s still alive.” And Charlie did come back—stunted but alive. Short, round Charlie and tall, thin Eleanor grew beside each other and they got along just fine in their big metal can (with the ivy and the onions) and even made the trip when we moved to a bigger house last winter with a place in the back to fulfill our promise to Charlie for his forever planting spot. “But what about Eleanor?”

“Should we separate them? Can we get them out of the can? Can I bust up that concrete in the back for a big enough hole?” We found a place in the back with suitable sun and shade, but we decided not to split up the pair that we had anthropomorphically deemed a campus couple. They were both half asleep and barely waking as I borrowed a sledge hammer and had at it, through two layers of concrete and one layer of hundred-year-old brick (which I saved) to make a hole big enough for the pair.

It took some hours of manual labor to accomplish their new and forever home and we bipeds both pushed and pulled on their trunks to free them from their now cramped quarters in the metal container, but out they came in a rush of soil and debris, knocking me on my rear in the detritus of my efforts.

We dropped them into their forever (we believe) home and shoveled earth and broken concrete to secure them, and there they stood like a sleepy groom with his barely dressed partner (and the ivy and onions, who hadn’t slept a wink all winter). We waited to see if we had traumatized them terminally, and a few days later, when we went to check on them, there they were, loud and proud, getting all dressed up for Spring.

Judiciously, we left the pair their privacy to adjust to the new year (spring is a tree’s New Year, you know) and allowed Mother Nature to water and warm them.

Now, if you’re the kind of biped that sees life and love in all things, if you’d go to the pet store and purchase crickets just to set them free, you open your car window to let that errant winged intruder escape, you’re the type of biped that catches a spider in your house with a paper cup and sheet of paper and sets them outdoors, or even the type that lets weeds grow around your yard for the bees and butterflies, we just might have a chance to save the world.

This is just the type of naïve kindnesses that have a tendency to expand exponentially. The next thing you know, you might be volunteering to feed the poor or run errands for a geezer, pick up some litter on your street, or even start taking better care of yourself and your loved ones.

By the way, Charlie didn’t regain use of his upper branches but blossoms nicely around Eleanor’s waist and lower limbs (they look precious together, I can’t wait to see if they have babies). She smiles down upon him, and I swear I heard him tell her, “It’s better to have loved a short cypress than to never have loved a tall.” Mother Nature and Father Time are now in charge.