There's That Tree

When we were kids, my parents would drive my two brothers and I to the other side of the Schuylkill river to see cousins or my mother’s parents. We took a crazy route that as I now try to remember, I get lost. The way was not marked by street names and numbers but by quirky and personal landmarks that had the qualities of a private joke.
Driving under the faded green riveted el train platform, going up the hill in Manyunk past brick factories…and then the real landmarks, the ones we yelled out loud in unison, like “Ritchie Allen’s house!” Ritchie Allen played for the Phillies in the 60’s.

I have no idea how we know that it was his house, or even if it was, and I can’t say it matters, we all just always tried to yell it first. On one trip, on a perfectly ordinary suburban street, we saw a slow moving car run into a tree. It was kind of exciting, but more importantly, it offered another landmark oportunity. After that, every time we drove past, took that right turn, and came around that curve, we would yell “There’s the tree that got hit by a car!” And it was still there, scarred, but healing the way trees do, a gray patch with a ring of growth around the edges. For years we always shouted it out, and I’m sure if we passed it now, we would do the same. “There’s the tree that got hit by the car!”

I always vaguely picture the year as a circle, with the New Year at the top and summer starting down at the bottom. It swings back up through the fall, curving toward January. November 19th last year was the day that Rosina’s oxygen dropped and she was rushed down to the ICU. She was there for two more months. It was a complication, that unchecked, could be fatal all by itself in a matter of hours, and I see now, though I hate to say it, it was the beginning of the end. December 7th was the day doctors began telling me about, preparing me for, what could happen. It was close to the time that I had to tell the kids. And I feel like we’re coming around the curve right now, here in late November and early December, coming around that curve where the car hit the tree. The car’s not there, and there’s little sign of an accident, but the tree remains, and shows a scar, healing.

xo
ph