Another Chance
Lessons from my favorite tree
For a long time, my favorite thing about our property was the maple tree in our backyard. Birds and squirrels made their home in its perfectly round canopy. Our kids built fairy houses at its base and swung on a rope swing from its branches. Kate took naps in a hammock in its shade. And I had a perfect view of the tree from my desk. On May 7, 2020 I snapped the photo below through my office window:
Then over Valentine’s Day weekend 2021, the Willamette Valley was hit by a huge ice storm. We lost power in the middle of the night. (It would be out for a week.) When we ventured outside the next morning, we were devastated. The maple tree had been absolutely mangled.
I grieved after that storm. It had damaged or destroyed tens of thousand of trees in the Valley.
Many of the trees in our yard were damaged, but none as badly as the beloved maple. Here it is on May 7, 2021, one year after my first photo.
We thought we would lose the tree altogether. For months after the storm, it continued to shed branches. Twice we had arborists come out to work on it. Mostly we watched and waited and hoped.
Slowly—but somehow also faster than we would have guessed—the maple is making a comeback. The birds and squirrels are back too. There’s a new swing hanging from a sturdy limb. Soon Kate will move her hammock under its shade. Here’s what it looks like today:
The tree’s canopy will likely never be picture-perfect round again. But if anything I love this tree more than before. It’s a survivor.
In our living room hangs a framed print by Scott Erickson. The piece is called “Another Chance.” I’m pretty sure Erickson’s print depicts the ancient practice of coppicing, which involves cutting a tree to its stump to encourage new growth. By coincidence or Providence, I picked up the print from the local frame shop on May 7, 2025, five years to the day after I took the first photo of my favorite tree.
Both this print and the maple tree remind my family that, though our lives are vulnerable, we have a deeper capacity for resilience than we may realize.
Injured doesn’t mean dead, and, praise God, even death isn’t the end.
I love to see this comeback story! Our family home in Alabama had a tornado topple a 100 year old pecan and mangle an old magnolia and an oak in late January. I haven't seen it in person yet but the voids pain me in photos. Then the last snow storm of our season snapped two big limbs off the maple that my apartment windows have opened to for the last 16 years. I'd watched hawks feed on many a pigeon on the one limb, and squirrels would come and raid our bird feeder from the other. Again, the void pains me. So a beloved tree comeback is a welcome win to see this year!