Memory and Trees, Part 1
About fifteen years ago I was helping my mother chop down a magnolia tree in her back yard. The poor tree was crammed into this tiny space between the house and the concrete deck surrounding a swimming pool. It was a mercy killing as much as it was a defense of the pool and the house’s foundation.
That same day we received a phone call from my uncle. My grandmother had fallen ill and had to be hospitalized. She had been grief stricken following the death of her husband a few years earlier, and there were speculations about a suicide attempt. She would never come home again, though her body yet lives.
In my mind, the killing of the tree, and the demise of my grandmother were connected. My grandmother had always told me, “Ann Marie, you should write our family history.” But I had waited too long. I could no longer ask her about the stories. She could no longer tell me. And my mother had always been strangely bereft of a memory. She couldn’t tell me either.
I wasn’t going to give up, though. The “family history” would have to be a “family fiction,” and the magnolia tree would lend her vast memory where my family had none.