I didn't see the pictures of the tree fallen, but I can just imagine.

I am not unsympathetic to the horrible devastation that happened in the NY Metro area, but the tree in front of Grandma's house is saddening to me, inspite of other things that have happened. I guess, I wanted Stoney to grow up with the same tree that I grew up with. It reminds me of Aunt Gloria who came to Dad's wake with a story of the past that carried me back through time and helped me to see the loss in the light of eternity. She didn't cry at the look on his face and neither did uncle, she remembered. Right in front of me she went back to before he was born. She said, he looks like his great and large father. Look what a big man he became? She said when I met his father, I was a little girl and I used to swing from his arms like you swing from a tree. He was huge and fun to play with. I knew the big man who swung us around like that and I was able to rejoice in the memory that God allowed my father to get as big, or bigger than his father and just like a tree to swing us all from his arms. I thought that tree would shade Stoney "boy" and give him the sense of the past that I can't get to him to tell. I thought that it would tell him the stories of the arguments and fights we fought underneath it and the hopes for great and wonderful welcoming that we expected when we saw it on the way to Grandma Delapena's house. He is in the house and I guess he doesn't need me to tell him of the welcome in the house. My big boy is well on the way to becoming the tree that his grandpa and great grandpa was and it makes me think of the pipsqueaks who are coming up behind us. I am glad that no one was hurt at the loss of the tree, but I like to imagine that Aunt Glo told God to loosen that tree to help us appreciate and reminisce of the significance in these days when we have little ones to tell the stories to.