Peace with Trees: A Memoir

●   CHAPTER 1   ●

A Thousand Cardboard Boxes

EVERYTHING WENT SIDEWAYS in a second. It had been a perfectly beautiful August day—sunshine, warmth, stillness. Nothing moved. Nothing wanted to. It was a day that wanted to take a nap after reading a good book while lounging in the shade next to a table with a slippery, wet glass of sweet iced tea. A day where time moved comfortably slow, allowing every moment to be savored, the sun perfectly content to stay in one place and shine light over our yellow 1830’s farmhouse.

We didn’t live on a farm. What once had been a farm was now a development of split-level and bilevel homes. Our house was memorable, sitting on the street corner, its yard lined with a stone wall dotted with purple puddingstone and featuring a well with a working pulley and wooden bucket and an old maple tree right by the driveway, my favorite of the many trees that stood tall throughout our yard.

The maple tree had a massive limb that swung out gracefully from the trunk. As a child, I wanted to climb the tree and sit on that limb, but it was a little too high for my comfort. Instead, I opted to sit on a large root that emerged from the base, the perfect size for a little one’s chair. It was there that I sat and collected leaves in the fall, rested from building snow forts in the winter, traced the roots and bark with my fingers in the spring, and watched cars drive by in the summer, the limb freely stretching outward right above me. Near the base of the limb was an opening, a scar from a past injury, where squirrels, chipmunks, and occasionally raccoons scurried in and out, perhaps living communally and finding their own pockets of space within the vast hollow trunk. It seemed large enough to accommodate all of them without conflict.

In essence, for the first twenty years of my life, I lived with my family in a storybook setting in the storybook town of Denville in northern New Jersey, where life was simple until everything went sideways.

My dad and I sat in the TV room watching the New York Yankees play the Texas Rangers, he in his blue recliner with Mickey, our obese tuxedo tiger cat, curled up on his lap, me on the matching plaid couch with my feet propped up on the white wicker chest that served as a coffee table. We wished we were at the stadium given how beautiful it was outside. It would have been a great way to spend my last day at home before I returned to Syracuse University for my junior year. Instead, we had completed errands—mundane things like going to the car wash and the pharmacy, nothing that matched what the day wanted us to do.

The TV beeped, and a scrolling message appeared at the bottom of the screen. Severe weather was coming. My dad and I looked at each other, surprised since the few fluffy clouds that floated in the sky appeared stationary, not a breeze anywhere to push anything. His newly cleaned cream Cadillac Seville was parked in the driveway. He pulled the handle on his recliner to release the foot rest, an automatic signal to Mickey that he was to wake up and jump down. He stood up and walked out the door, I assumed to move his car into the garage.

Mickey crept over to me and jumped up on my lap, head butting my face with affection before doing his usual turn around to curl up and settle in. It was the bottom of the first inning. Bernie Williams had just hit a double deep into center field, when the phone rang. I let it ring a few times, not wanting to disturb Mickey and hoping my mom would get it. By the third ring, it was clear that she was occupied doing something, perhaps folding laundry or dusting or any number of tasks she did regularly to add to our wonderful home life. I patted Mickey, my signal to him that I had to get up. He reluctantly hopped down and sat in the middle of the floor, as if waiting for one of us to return so he could regain a spot on someone’s lap. I got up and raced to the phone before the answering machine kicked on. It was one of my dad’s golf buddies.

I walked out onto the porch with the cordless phone. The sun was shining, splotches of bright blue sky peeking through white fluffy clouds, the same clouds that hadn’t seemed to move all day. My dad had already put his car into the garage and was in the middle of the driveway, having walked out to the mailbox to get the mail, when the stillness and the mundane quality of the day was disrupted.

Without any warning that it was coming other than that scrolling message at the bottom of the TV a few minutes beforehand, a strong gust of wind suddenly blew in from the west. It built on itself, gaining momentum exponentially, roaring in like a jet engine. The sky darkened. The clear air turned to a murky brownish gray. What had been standing tall was now bending over at a right angle. Leaves whipped like flags, their stems holding on with all their might, the weaker ones choosing to let go and float away. Treetops freakishly curved eastward. The grass flattened. My mom’s brown Buick, parked in front of the porch, quivered.

The tree with the massive limb was the first victim, its scar forecasting that it never had a chance. With this wind, the limb ripped away from the trunk, making a sound that will forever stay with me: a thousand cardboard boxes ripping at once. The sound penetrated me, stiffening my body, instinctually freezing it in place on the porch. The limb’s heaviness landed on the second victim, my mom’s car, causing the trunk to crumple up like aluminum foil, the glass to shatter, and the front to violently bounce up and down. My dad, in the direct path of this flying limb, had only a moment to look up and shield his head with his arm as the sticks and leaves crashed into him. Then I could no longer see him.

It all happened in less than a second.

A drenching rain followed. Through the phone, I screamed at my dad’s golf buddy to hang up so I could call 9-1-1. He thought I was joking and wouldn’t disconnect. Desperately, I roared at him to hang up while I repeatedly pressed the end button. Still no dial tone. Again, I shouted at my dad’s golf buddy, wanting my voice to choke him so that he would understand that nothing about this was a joke. I finally heard a dial tone and called 9-1-1.

I screamed for my mom through the screen door, who casually came around the corner of the hallway into the dining room, unaware that anything had happened and rushing only when she finally saw me. I opened the screen door and pulled her onto the porch, pointing toward my dad, who was invisible underneath the limb. She gasped at the scene—the tree, her car—but didn’t see why I kept pointing.

WHAT? she pleaded. What’s wrong? What? What?

I had lost the ability to speak. All I could do was point. I led my mom toward the edge of the porch, unable to step off and bring her to him. I didn’t want to see any more than I’d already seen.

Dad was completely obstructed. My mom couldn’t understand. She kept asking me what was wrong. It took everything in me to push the words out of my mouth, like in a dream where you want to scream and you have no voice, so I couldn’t speak. I kept pointing and crying, and was now trembling uncontrollably.

Mom made her way closer and ran toward the sticks and leaves, at which point she finally saw his prone body. She crouched down next to him among the branches. She screamed at me to come and help, but I couldn’t move.

THIS IS YOUR FATHER! YOU’VE GOT TO HELP HIM! she shouted to me.

My legs felt like jelly. I held the side of the house as I stepped off the porch into the pounding rain and unforgiving wind. I couldn’t walk. I may have crawled to her. I didn’t want to see. Is Dad alive or dead? I didn’t know.

My mom tapped my dad, trying to rouse him. Kneeling next to my mom, I could now see. Pinned under branches, sticks, and leaves, he was flat on his back, his head turned slightly to the side, glasses knocked off, eyes open and staring vacantly ahead, mail strewn all about him. I still didn’t know.

My mom shouted at me to get towels. I ran inside, my legs becoming a powerful escape vehicle. I would have done anything to get away from seeing him, but I also knew that getting towels would be my way to help him. Running into the house, my safe haven for twenty years, helped me get away from what had just happened. It was an attempt to rewind the clock, wake up from the nightmare, or desperately do anything possible to change what couldn’t be changed. In the linen closet, I found a large stack of neatly folded white bath towels. I grabbed the entire stack and ran back toward the front door, my legs again losing their power the closer I got.

I CALLED 9-1-1, I yelled to my mom as thunder crashed around us.

WHERE ARE THEY? KEEP CALLING UNTIL THEY GET HERE!

I ran back to the porch and grabbed the cordless phone that I had set down on the red bench and called 9-1-1 again, another thing to do to help while still avoiding seeing. The dispatcher said help was already on the way. Seconds felt like minutes. I still couldn’t move back to my mom to help, still afraid to see, to know the answer to alive or dead. I called Kurt and Marilyn, my dad’s law practice partner and his wife, who lived down the street from us. They got there just before five police officers pulled up.

Five sets of flashing lights. These were joined by more lights: two ambulances, two fire trucks, and a sea of cars with blue flashing lights. Dissonant red, white, and blue flashes, lighting up the wet, gray air, magnified the horror of what didn’t need to be any bigger. Several dozen first responders carried first aid supplies, others finding saws and axes to cut away the downed tree limb. From within the chaos word traveled to me that my dad was conscious.

Many people worked together to free my dad as the rain pounded and lightning stuck too close for comfort. Some familiar faces emerged through the flashes of emergency lights. Kim, a volunteer rushing toward my dad while carrying medical supplies, made eye contact with me and released a deep breath, breaking her focus for one moment to convey to me that she knew this was bad. Up to this point, she was only known to me as the girl I had ridden on the bus with to Girl Scout camp. In middle school, we took tap lessons together. I remember that I accidentally scratched her brand-new black, high-heeled tap shoes while horsing around before class. Although she had been annoyed, she didn’t cry about it. She shook off her upset seconds later as we laughed about other things.

Willie, a classmate throughout my schooling, was one of the guys lifting the stretcher that was carrying my dad. He had been held back a year as a young kid, so we met in second grade, the grade he was repeating. A few times I saw him teased by other boys for no apparent reason and watched him cry. Yet somehow the bullying never affected his heart enough to stop him from caring about others. He was kind. Even though I never hung out with Willie in high school, having parked right behind me in the school parking lot one January morning, he decided to follow me home, without me asking, the first time I ever drove in a snowstorm, just to make sure I was safe. Now, he avoided eye contact, even though he knew who the man on the stretcher was. Many of the EMTs and volunteers swarming our yard had used my dad for real estate closings, small business formations, and the writing of their wills. If they didn’t know him as an attorney, they knew him as a former member of the Board of Education. If not from there, then as a volunteer at the annual Harvest Festival. If not that, then as the parent of one of their kid’s classmates.

Now they’d know him as the guy who was hit by a tree.

THE WAITING AREA in the emergency room was crowded, or so it felt. There were some empty chairs, but not enough for me to sit far enough away from strangers to get privacy. After crying for hours, tears were stinging my face. I could not stop them from flowing. As the only one in the room constantly crying, others stole quick glances my way, wondering what had happened.

We knew my dad was alive, but we didn’t know anything else for hours. Then we found out that his lower vertebrae were shattered. Surgery was scheduled for the next morning, a Sunday. Special equipment needed to be flown in from Ohio overnight. Meanwhile, the surgeon and his team were preparing themselves for what could be a ten-hour surgery, all in an attempt to prevent or minimize paralysis.

I imagined how Dad’s life in a wheelchair would be. No more golf. Getting on a boat to go fishing would be challenging. My parents would need to move to another house, one better suited for an extra-large wheelchair to fit his six-foot-two, 300-plus-pound body. I would take the semester off to aid him in his recovery. Different scenarios played out in my mind. We would have tough times, but we would manage. We’d grow closer. My dad would eat healthier. He’d lose weight. It would be okay.

After the doctors stabilized my dad and finished evaluating him, we were able to see him. I was so upset that I could barely walk. The last I had seen of him, he was on the stretcher being pushed into the ambulance. He had winced at every jostle, the pain was so intense. I held on to my mom, who somehow had strength to hold me up, as we now walked toward the doorway of his hospital room and up to his hospital bed, still afraid to see. I used the side rails on the bed to support myself, to show my dad strength from the waist up while my legs shook with fear and sadness below his line of sight.

He looked dirty and flecks of leaves were still stuck to his hands and face. Underneath him I caught a glimpse of familiar fabric. It was the shirt he had been wearing, which was now in tatters from being cut away to facilitate emergency treatment. Dried blood caked his elbow. A few of his teeth were knocked out, making it difficult to understand him; his voice not sounding like his usual authoritative, slightly lawyerish dad voice. Weakness, pain, vulnerability. Nothing about this was like him.

I’m hurt real bad, he said. He didn’t think he was going to make it. He cried as he told us this. He couldn’t believe his pain. One moment he was getting the mail and the next he was pinned under a tree in the middle of a storm. His short-term memory didn’t register what happened, so we told him. He still couldn’t believe it, even though I could. It was the constant background music in my head—a thousand cardboard boxes ripping at once.

We told him he would make it. Inside, I pleaded with him not to give up. He had to make it. I was only twenty. He needed to see me graduate college. He needed to walk me down the aisle when I got married. He needed to take his grandkids fishing. He was only fifty-three.

Unable to stay next to my dad, I went back to the waiting area. I didn’t want him to see me so broken, to worry about me when he needed to focus on getting better. My body shook, recalling what happened. The wind. The tree. A thousand cardboard boxes ripping at once. That sound was in me, as if it had vibrated deep inside and formed a marker on my DNA. It consumed my thoughts along with my dad. I could think of nothing else.

Without realizing what I was doing, I found myself rocking in my seat like a drug addict going through withdrawal. I noticed this after I saw several concerned eyes staring at me in the emergency room. I stopped, shocked at what I was doing. I’m not crazy. I saw something horrible. That’s all. The eyes darted away every time I met their gaze.

A crushing sensation built inside my core as if the tree had punched me in the gut. I wanted to vomit, but I hadn’t eaten in over nine hours. Instead, my body returned to rocking, my arms crossed tightly across my stomach, my shoulders rounding forward as if I was protecting my heart, keeping it from exploding from trauma.

The doctors continued to tend to my dad while my mom and I sat in the waiting room. Rarely were the two of us ever silent when we were together. So often we were thinking the same things and finishing each other’s sentences. She was never one to cry in front of me or ever reveal any vulnerability. She was always the one I’d run to for comfort, and she’d always have the right words to say to me. My mom, always perfectly composed with the right outfit and makeup, even while spending the day at home cleaning and cooking, now showed small cracks in her demeanor. She held back her tears, but I could tell with her watery eyes and deep breaths it was a struggle for her to do so, just as it was a struggle for me not to rock. As easy and effortless as our relationship had always been, now we didn’t know what to say to each other. I suggested we each call someone for support.

My mom called Aunt Janice, my dad’s youngest sister. She immediately drove up from South Plainfield. She was a nurse and also the closest relative, geographically. She helped interpret what the doctors told us, which I couldn’t register at all.

I called Kristine, a high school friend who was studying nursing. She hadn’t gone back to school yet for the fall, so without hesitation she met me in the ER along with Dan and Ann Marie, two other friends who were with her when I called. I explained what had happened over the phone. She couldn’t believe it.

The doctors needed my dad’s hypertension medications, so Kristine drove me, Dan and Ann Marie home to pick them up. Returning home, we found the driveway miraculously cleared of everything except my mom’s crumpled brown Buick and the heavy base of the offending tree limb