Mourning The Trees
I love my tree lined street. I love driving the "back way" to and from work on McCarthy Road along VanVechten Park. I love the tree lined roads and streets throughout the City of Cedar Rapids. In the Winter, the trees turn white and sometimes silver with snow and ice. The sun's light would turn the trees into a shimmering display.
The trees brought me peace on a difficult day. My big ash tree was home to a family of squirrels every year. My husband and I joked about them being our tenants, but more like squatters since they didn't pay rent. I fed them and watched them with my granddaughters as they ran up and down the tree playing. We moved to this house 4-1/2 years ago before my oldest granddaughter was born. The girls learned to help me fill the feeders for the squirrels and the birds. We would fill the feeders, then go back inside. The girls would wait excitedly for the squirrels to come out of the hole in the tree for their corn and seeds. My youngest granddaughter who is 2 years old, would shriek, "pet them, c'mon Grammy, outside, pet them!" as I tried to explain to her that the squirrels won't let us pet them.
On August 10, 2020, a derecho storm hit Iowa. Winds in Cedar Rapids were estimated up to 140 miles per hour with driving rain. It came up fast and hard. 100 year old and older trees fell like they were young saplings. Bark and leaves were stripped. I pulled a large tree limb from my back fence that was completely smooth as if someone had taken a grinder to it, smoothing away every piece of bark. The trees on McCarthy along VanVechten Park looked like they have been torched. Leaves are gone, limbs are gone, tops of trees stripped and snapped. Huge trees cracked and split. It looks like giant dinosaurs trampled some of the trees.
My ash tree split in half as it fell, exposing the squirrels home where they had stored every year. I've only seen one squirrel since the storm. I'm crying as I write this. It's the first time I've cried. Between the pandemic, the injustices and turmoil in this country, and then the storm, I've been so exhausted and angry that I couldn't cry. People have lost so much. Homes and businesses have been marked unsafe. Tenants are being forced to move from damaged apartments, some forced to move into shelters. Four neighbors on my street had trees fall on top of their homes. Some homes and vehicles were impaled by trees. I'm fortunate that our home didn't have any damage. We have wonderful neighbors who ran outside after the storm to check on each other. We have spent the past two weeks working together, clearing debris, cutting up fallen trees, supporting each other through days without electricity. We are very lucky.
I miss the trees and the squirrels. After two weeks, it just hit me how much I miss them. I worry about our environment. Days after the derecho, wildfires started burning in California and western states. Tropical storms and possible hurricanes are headed for the southeastern US. What could be the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth - 130F (54.4C) - may have been reached in Death Valley National Park, California. I am aware of climate changes and have been for some time. When the derecho hit, I had a glimpse of what the future will look like. Extreme weather, droughts, flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, the disasters of dystopian novels and movies. This will happen in my granddaughters' lifetimes. Those trees we lost will not grow back. It will take years for new trees to reach that size. My granddaughters will not see that. I hope they remember the trees. I hope they remember the squirrels, rabbits, and birds. I hope they remember the deer that would come up early in the morning and empty the bird feeders or eat the hostas. I hope all of the animals return. I hope my granddaughters and your grandchildren will have the trees, the rivers, the wildlife. We have to make some drastic changes to stop the damage we are doing to this planet, for the sake of future generations.