Well, maybe it does if you space it out a few years.
Over the weekend, a tree in our yard was struck by lightning. My beautiful plum tree. My favorite tree. My tree that has pink blossoms in the spring.
As luck would have it, I was not home at the time. I was at an event out past the airport watching the sky grow dark. I was talking to people and I didn’t want to be on my phone but the weather enthusiast in me couldn’t resist checking out my weather app and noticing we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. I knew that conditions at my location were going to get a little dicey. I didn’t realize my house, an hour away, was in the bullseye as well.
I went over to a window and took a photo of the dark clouds moving in. I can’t help myself when it comes to clouds. I am fascinated by their color, shape and size especially when a storm is moving in. I had to run outside to get an unobstructed view and the clouds were even darker but I didn’t hear any thunder or see any lightning.
When I went back inside the only indication that a storm was happening were the branches of a small tree blowing violently against the windows. I noticed the rain coming down through the sheer curtains but a group of musicians practicing drowned out any other sounds.
The storm lasted about a half an hour and then things went back to normal.
I made a quick call to my husband and he told me a tree was struck. He said he was on the phone with his sister and the sound was so loud she asked him, “What was that?”
For some reason, I didn’t ask which tree was hit. (We have two trees in the front yard, two apple trees and my plum tree in the back.) It wasn’t until my husband sent photos that shock set in. It was my plum tree! The tree that once a year, for a very brief time, is covered with delicate pink blossoms that really pop against the dark purple leaves.
I try to take a photo of the kids in front of this particular tree when it blooms each spring. The tree was perfect for climbing because it had a few branches that were low enough for small arms to reach. My youngest has even used the tree as a home gym doing pull ups on one of the low limbs.
The tree has been home to numerous robins’ nests over the years and since the tree is right outside my bedroom window, I could hear the hungry morning tweets that often started pretty early.
When I looked at the photos my husband sent, my first thought was I hope the tree doesn’t die.
It was probably twelve years ago that our maple tree was struck by lightning during a violent late spring storm. My two older kids were preschool age and I remember I was sitting on the floor with one of them. I felt the energy travel through the floor after hearing a thunder crack unlike any other.
I didn’t put it together at the time that our tree was hit but the next day we noticed bark was scattered all around the yard from the point of impact.
Over the next couple weeks, the leaves began to fall from the tree. This normally happened in the fall but not during the height of summer. We hoped the tree would bounce back the next year but it never happened. The dead tree stood in our yard for years because I could not part with it and also due to the huge cost of having a tree cut down.
I am thankful that I had taken pictures of the tree, in each season, which now serve as a reminder of our magnificent maple. Just last year, we planted a sapling near the spot where our beloved tree stood.
My husband says since the plum tree is not a sap tree, it will not die like the maple did, but the tree has literally been cut in half.
The clean-up has begun and I have yet to get a full view of the “new” version of the plum tree.
I guess having part of that tree is better than losing it completely and maybe that is the take away here. Things change. Nothing stays the same but we have to put the past aside and embrace what is new, what is different. The blossoms may not be as numerous but hopefully they will still be there, as they have greeted us every spring since we moved into our home.
