The pandemic tree of 2020

Three months ago today, we here in Kentucky entered our current state of limited activity and restriction.  And, yes, I'm fully aware that while so many places are "open," I am that many months overdue to have my teeth cleaned, I have to make an appointment to have my glasses adjusted, and I am still uncomfortable in shopping malls and other public spaces where so many others are walking around without face masks as though all is back to normal.

But let me tell you a story that may wind up being symbolic of overcoming the coronavirus pandemic, at least in our household.

My wife and I bought our smallish patio home over twenty years ago.  We live in southwest Lexington, Kentucky, in an area that's sought after because of the school district and proximity to shopping and other amenities.  We have always liked this location, and, even though we're empty nesters, find that the house is suitable for us even when family comes to visit for the day or longer.

When we first obtained the house we built a privacy fence on the left side of the property, as the house to the right already had a privacy fence and our property backed up to a brick wall.  This gave us an enclosed space for our dog (and later our son's dog and cat as well) and a small amount of seclusion.

Anyway, there's a space of about three feet between the edge of our patio to the fence, and because we had difficulty getting grass to grow there, I put decorative gravel into that space and it's there today.  Over time that space also became the home to a rain barrel and a small storage cabinet where I put my grill tools.

And a tree.

No, we didn't plant the tree there.  A few years ago I noticed that there was a sprig of some kind of evergreen plant that had emerged from under the gravel, very near the part of the fence that ends the enclosure and runs parallel to the rear wall of our house.  My wife saw it and I told her I needed to pull that up, and she suggested that I not do that, that it was cute and so forth.

So at her request, I left it alone.  And it grew to a height of around four feet.  It didn't spread out, and appears to be a pine tree.  Think of the little fragile tree from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and you'll have a good image of it.

Flash forward to yesterday, when I found a few minutes to clean the rain barrel.  If you've never had one, know that you'll need to clean it at least once a season, because of the gunk that comes off the roof in the form of algae and other organic material.  I had used up the water over the weekend watering our various plants and shrubs, so it was a good time to do it.

My wife said before I went out that we should see if I could dig that little tree up, with the rain barrel out of the way temporarily.  So I did my work on the barrel and scraped back the rock that was up against our little tree.  The trunk was only about as big around as my big toe, and I told her that it was too close to the fence and patio to make digging it up feasible.

We discussed it and agreed that it needed to come out of this confined space, one way or another, so I told her I would try to pull it up and if it broke, we'd discard it.  That's what I assumed would happen.

Instead, the tree was not rooted very deeply and I was able to cleanly pull it from the ground, roots and all.

We selected a spot about midway back in our yard, I dug a hole and we planted it.

As we were coming back into the house to wash up, my wife said this was the "pandemic tree of 2020" and my first instinct was to chuckle.  

Then it hit me:  she's right.  I would much rather remember this year for the tree we saved than those we lost to the coronavirus pandemic, the continued economic hardships that so many people still face and the multiple tragedies that have fueled the current widespread protests for racial and economic equality all over the country and the world.

So I'll make mention of the pandemic tree occasionally from here to let you know how it's doing.  Am I confident it will live in its new surroundings?  Not entirely, but then again, it probably should not have grown where it was.

If we're lucky, maybe it will grow and flourish.  And, in a sense, maybe we will, too.