Cherries

I was sitting at our dining room table when the cherry tree, the great, big, cherry tree which has leaned precariously over our side of the boulevard for as a long as I can remember, fell.

I was sitting at our dining room table when, at the splitting sound of wood giving way, the neighborhood turned to look. Two teenage boys walking home from school across the street, whipped around, whooped, and pointed. A woman walking a small white dog, who was just ten sidewalk squares away from being squashed, gasped. A bald man from a couple houses down ran over, and I ran too, flinging open the front door to stare in shock. Frozen, and filled with joy.

In that breathless, silent second, when we were all together in awe, my dad was already calling downstairs to make sure I was alright. My dad was already rushing down the stairs, ready to inspect the damage. He was already ready to call the city (since, apparently, no one else will,) and tell them the terrible news there was now a mess to be taken care of.

He didn’t seem to see the joy. The whole neighborhood had tuned its mind to this moment.

**********

When I was little girl, my dad always told me to run past that cherry tree. What if it had chosen that precise moment to collapse on me? I wasn’t to stare in awe up from under its tresses at the light shining through the leaves. I wasn’t to dawdle and dangle around its trunk. I wasn’t to trace my finger along its great arc as far as I could…

My friends tell me I worry. Let me tell you, my dad worries. With my teenage mind, I oft struggle and refute the daily report, but every week I’m told there’s a new alligator attack.

“You mustn’t go to Florida.”

In this latest morning, I was warned against the dangers of thinking too hard whilst driving.

“You mustn’t daydream while you’re driving. If you catch yourself daydreaming, turn on the radio.”

**********

A tree fell, and my dad was distressed. I was joyous. Look at this whole world.

**********

My dad, who covers his ears as sirens go by, and closes his eyes as the subway rushes violently past, stares straight at fireworks. For some reason, he stands, unflinchingly, amid the boom that rattles your chest, and in the color which lights your eyes. I’ve always wanted to feel the fireworks just as he does. I’ve always asked to make sure he felt it just as I did.

Matching images reflect in both our eyes, mine and my dad’s. In this moment, I could float away on the feeling that we’re seeing the same colors. Isn’t it wonderful? Yes.

“I swear the fireworks get better every year,” I say, as if I haven’t lived only seventeen 4th of Julys.

We stand together, breathless, and say “wow,” in the same echo. My head finds its way to his upper-arm, and I get to feel little again. Happy, I’m reminded what it feels like to be related. Happy.

**********

Stories from dad were always sweet like cherries, but some jokes have turned sour.

“That’s right, men do have the problem. It’s women!”

I can’t laugh at that one. His chuckle is alone at the dining room table.

**********

The tree fell, and I grew up.

**********

These days, my dad’s been telling me that I know better than he. He’s been asking me what he should do. He’s been asking me the meaning of the songs I listen to, and the books I read, and the forms I ask him to fill out.

“When I was a little boy, heck, when I was in college, I didn’t know a thing! I didn’t know half the stuff you’re doing now.”

He’s been telling me this since I was in grade school. I always beamed with pride in my own effort, and in the fulfillment of this quasi-American dream.

“You know more than I,” he says to me now, but this is not at all what I want to hear.

**********

The tree may have fallen, but I’m still hugging its roots. I want the fire-breather – the dad who can get the fireplace blazing in a matter of minutes. I want the storyteller – the dad who keeps me up on road trips, inadvertently teaching me to daydream. I want the star-reader – the dad who has me pointing up at the stars, neck aching, staring up in awe at the sky’s terraces. I don’t want to Know-It-All, I want the dad that does.

Just because I think hearing aids would do us all some good doesn’t mean I don’t respect you.

**********

Growing up is realizing the fallibility in your adults, and the fallibility in your trees. But he was right about the tree, wasn’t he?

**********

After a tree has fallen, it takes a Sunday morning to remind me how I want to feel.

In my mind, there’s nothing better than waking to the whistle of a teakettle, and the sounds of my dad making eggs downstairs, sunny-side-up. There’s nothing better than prancing into the kitchen to see a joyous smile on my dad’s face, (“You’re up!”), and taking the kettle in my own hands to begin pouring the tea and coffee.

Bathed in the yellow light shining through the leaves, we sit at the dining room table, sharing stories and toast. Though the carcass lays, dismembered now, in our lawn, I wouldn’t be so foolish to say, “The lawn is only brighter now.” Rather, that I understand that the roots remain as we remain. What’s gone is not gone. A fallen tree will always have been a tree.