Trees make a sound when they die.
We had a bad storm in my city. The storm flooded numerous lower-elevation streets, with videos circulating online of cars partially underwater. It's not hurricane-levels of bad, but for Alberta, it's definitely Not Right.
I love storms, but you can't deny their ferocity. And I don't think they're going to get any better, either.
I live in a small row-house style condo. The homes all surround the parking lot, and at its heart was this big tree. I'm not really a tree guy, but I from what I've compared pictures to it looks like maybe a green ash.
It was right across the asphalt from my front yard. I saw it every morning when I woke up, or left out my front door. Its presence was undeniable.
It provided shade and broke up the sky, always rustling a little in the slightest breeze; in such a way that it felt like it was greeting you. The corvids always liked to adorn the numerous branches, and the hares that like to shelter on the property enjoyed curling up beneath it.
I've been here 12 years now, and that tree was here much longer than I was. I thought it would be until long after I had moved on.
(The tree in question is to the right, partially covered by the jeep)
When the storm hit, I watched it from my kitchen. The rain was coming in sideways, and from the windows looked like I took the house through a carwash. My ancestors would have told stories of how they watched Thor laying waste to Giants from how the sky cracked alight.
My dog just wasn't having it, so I had to slap his thunder-shirt on and take him with me into the basement, and spent the night gaming while he took shelter on my lap.
The next day, social media showed the innumerable flooded streets and establishments. There were videos of hail-lined neighborhoods, manhole covers launching from their assigned stations, and people taking to the temporary rivers by canoe. The flooding wasn't bad enough to warrant any evacuations, but I'm sure a lot of basements were underwater, and the property damage is likely to be in the millions.
To speak of property damage, the condo property didn't get away unscathed.
The green ash had been laid low by the wind. A large crack had sundered the trunk at its base, and half the tree was slowly lowering down into the parking lot. We all watched as it sagged lower, and lower as the hours passed.
To paint a better picture, think of the parking lot like a diagonal and elongated 'M', with the two ends being exits and row-housing on all sides of it. By mid-day, larger vehicles like delivery or even jacked-up pick-ups couldn't get under the dying tree.
The ground around the base had also started to bulge, to where some of the asphalt further out had begun to rise. Our concern turned to the still up-right portion of the tree.
If the sagging half broke off, the other side could potentially fall too - in the other direction. Beneath it were the main electrical box for the property, and a fire hydrant. The top of the tree would also likely strike the roof of one of the rows, too.
Unfortunately, I was the VP of the board. I had to make a call, as much as I hated it. I got in touch with the property manager we pay to keep the place running, and relayed the situation. She told me she'd send someone out ASAP.
Overnight, the green ash, which had lived its life in the shape of a tight 'V', had fully split; arcing down to rest its plentiful, leafy top branches fully on the pavement.
I woke up to a tree-maintenance company at my door, and they walked me through the situation. The roots were in fact coming up, the other half would fall too, and all of our worst fears were realized.
The entire tree had to be taken down. We were losing the green ash.
The facts hit me harder than I had anticipated I would have. It had the taste of when I had found out a neighborhood cat that always came by had passed away. He wasn't my cat, but he had a place somewhere in my life. But, y'know, tree flavoured.
I organized the notice to get affected neighbors, myself included, to move their vehicles so the crew could work. The affected lot cleared, and the bucket-trucks with their woodchippers moved in.
I sat on my front step and watched it all with a blunt in hand. I felt I owed it to the ash, given that I made the call that killed it.
To continue the earlier analogy, it felt like being there when you had to put a pet down. Maybe not the profound gut-punch of your family dog dying, but enough that it definitely set the mood for the day. Hence, the blunt.
Chainsaws revved to life, and the team began their work of parsing down the tree. The sentimental pagan side of me felt it cruel, like butchering a Thing before it was dying, but not dead. Yet I knew it had to be done to bring the old giant down safely for those who lived here.
Piece-by-piece, I watched as the ash came down.
The team was good at what they did, so it didn't take long. They were methodical, efficient, and safe every step of the way. They sawed away branches to expose the thicker limbs, then cut those down into segments. Logs littered the asphalt.
The first large limb they cut made a distinct snap as it fell, and it felt like it was the voice of the ash. Or maybe a cry.
I was maybe two-thirds of the way through my smoke before the two main trunks were all that remained; the one that had toppled, and the one that still remained upright, now relieved of its many limbs.
They started with the fallen trunk first, cutting it from top to stump in the same way they had the other limbs, just in thicker segments. About mid-way through, they took the chainsaw to the main, upright trunk.
The ash made a noise when it died. To say it was a crack doesn't really capture it. There was a finality to it, a profound severance.
A loss.
Maybe it was a 'you had to be there', but I felt it. There Something there before, and now that Something was Gone.
Everyone seemed to take a moment to stop, and give recognition to that absence. The work stopped briefly, and the silence felt meaningful. When the moment passed, they resumed, and continued their work.
I didn't stay to watch them feed the pieces into the woodchipper.
The view is different now when I look outside. Where the ash stood is now only a stump, and the sky feels empty without those limbs swaying in it. Every so often I hear the laments outside of neighbours coming home, or those who routinely cut through the complex noting its absence. The condo kids seem particularly distraught.
I found out after that the base of the tree, right where the crack that felled it was, had rotted significantly from within. That rot had begun to grow up into the trunks, so inevitably, the tree was going to die someday.
It sucks, but I'd rather it happen the way it did than to hurt someone. So there's the silver lining, I guess. The sky is still emptier, and I won't have something to wave 'hello' to me every morning anymore.
Gods damn, I miss that tree.
