🌳 The Grand Hackberry

There’s an old Hackberry in my backyard — or there was, I should say.

She’s a grand tree. A real presence. Six, maybe eight feet across at the base, and from there she opens up like the palm of a hand — wide, reaching, graceful — every limb branching with its own quiet purpose. If you stand beneath her, you can almost hear her breathe.

For years, people told me Hackberries were trouble — weak limbs, messy bark, the kind of tree that drops more than it gives. Maybe they’re right. But this one was magnificent. She anchored more than just the ground she grew from — a quiet old soul keeping watch beside the stone wall, long before I ever showed up.

What she must’ve seen. The happiness, the sorrow, the plain old passing of time. Families changing hands. Storms that split the sky open. Laughter echoing from porches that no longer exist. Maybe even arguments carried off by the wind. She saw it all.

I’ve cursed that tree more times than I can count — the fallen limbs, the carpenter ants, the shade too deep for grass to grow. And yet, in the wildest storms, when the gusts came howling through, she’d move with such impossible grace. Those massive arms swaying, bending, never breaking. I’d watch her dance and think, how does something that old still stand so proud?

Well — she did. For seventy years, maybe longer.

But time is merciless, even to the giants. A deep crack opened at her base, a wound no arborist or prayer could mend. And the hardest part? The most catastrophic thing ever done to that tree — I had to do it myself.

It’s strange, saying goodbye to something that never spoke a word to you. Just a tree, sure. But a magnificent one.

I’ll never look at that patch of earth without remembering her — the strength rooted deep, the patience carved by time, the grace that once drifted through the wind.

Thank you for watching, old friend.

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