The trees weren’t delivered exactly during the timeline I had scheduled. My goal was to make the trip to the flood ravaged land on Earth Day, but life had other plans. Here at home, my Beloved is in full blown “project mode,” which leads to our driveway being blocked often.
When I saw the neighbors in Del Rio were having a tree-planting day, I loaded my truck, Lizzy, and pointed her to Tennessee. The truck bed was chockablock full with plants and trees I had lifted from my property along with the generous donations from like-minded compassionate friends who removed sproutlings and pass along plants from their own property. Helping pull everything together, friends Ashley and Tonya had mucked out their storage buildings and donated a couple hundred plastic containers which, thankfully, provided the pots by which everything could be transported.
I originally saw a photo of the devastation in Del Rio, along the river where the water crested at 32 feet above flood stage. It’s a miracle, truly, that any structures survived. Most did not. In fact, when I looked at the photo shared on Facebook my heart told me this was the place that needed a little love. We could green up this barren land, even if it takes a few years.
Never one to meet a stranger, or one who is afraid of solo travel, I packed snacks and multiple water bottles. The larger trees rode shotgun in the front, with more arranged in the back and gently bent to keep their leaves from flapping in the breeze. “You’ll be fine,” I promised. “This is only for a couple hours.”
The trees knew their job.
With 300 yards remaining in the journey, Lizzy’s GPS told me to turn right, but I didn’t comply primarily because it didn’t look like there was an actual turn, or a road, or anything really. I ignored the GPS and encountered a place with multiple signs warning to KEEP OUT.
For you see, where there is a natural disaster and good intentions, there is also looting. I’ll be honest, I started shaking just a bit right about this time because should something happen to me there was zero cell coverage and even I didn’t know where I was! I backed up and made a turn, praying I wouldn’t need to put Lizzy into 4-wheel drive, and then followed GPS praying as I traveled over the railroad tracks and momentarily lost sight of the road.
Lord-a-Mercy, what I saw there. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. These people had been through enough. They didn’t need some weeping stranger rolling up on them and collapsing into a puddle, even one who just wanted to help. I stopped for a moment and let the tears come, then dried my eyes on a wrinkled Bojangles napkin I fished from my glovebox.
I missed the drop-off location address. The mailboxes had been washed into the river and traveled to the sea after Helene. Now, pieces of wood with numbers spray painted on them served as address. These were propped against camper trailers or large rocks. Even with the identifiers, I missed where I was meant to be. Except, I didn’t not really.
“Can I turn here?” I asked the man wearing a floppy hat. Two construction workers were passing sheets of tin above their heads to two more men who hammered them onto the roof of a building no larger than a storage unit. I cast an eye at the NO TRESPASSING sign and hoped he said yes.
“Sure,” he said.
“And by the way, would you like some trees?”
It was as if the trees had called the woman from the other side of the building. She emerged wearing a wrist brace identical to the one I’d pulled tight across my right arm that very morning. Her eyes, the palest of blue, her hair silver, like mine has become; her wrinkles, earned after months of hardship. We shared the same first name, the same tears, and in a blink I loved her.
“Why are you doing this?” Those were the first words she spoke. Words that gave me pause.
“Am I not supposed to be doing this?” I said without thinking. “I mean, is it not our call to help others? I don’t need to know you to help you. Something doesn’t need to happen to me to impact me. At least that’s what I believe.”
She stood with her braced arm shielding the unforgiving sun. “Yes. But, still ...” her voice trailed off. “I don’t understand.”
From Lizzy’s tailgate her husband said, “Can I have a poplar tree? They grow fast.”
I motion for him to join me on the passenger side where I open the door and unfurl the largest trees. “You see, I have hundreds of trees growing in my field. I can mow them down, or I can bring them to you. Maybe I’m just wired different than everyone else, but for me I had no choice but to bring them these trees to you.”
The man gestures toward the sandbar that once was a forest. “It’s going to be so hot this summer,” he said.
It’s already hot. I pray the trees will grow, supernaturally. I wish they were larger, but at four feet tall, they will have to do. I vow to lift more this fall and bring them because now, with the sap risen and coursing through the trees, they will surely die if I try to relocate any more to my newfound friends.
While they shop, I learn the woman broke her wrist as she navigated the steps of their new home which must be elevated to factor in the next possible flood. She took a tumble backward, her arm jutting out to brace the fall as we all are wont to do. My heart hurts for her. I don’t understand why some folk have a mighty struggle, while others have it so easy.
Focusing away from the negative, I explain that all the trees are ready to plant and include a hefty dose of horse manure, mulch, an extra pinch of fertilizer and labels identifying the trees. When she spies the purple Rose of Sharon shrub she whispers, “I love these, but my husband hates them. The neighbor next door had loads of them. Now they are all gone.”
“Take them,” I urge. “Give them to your neighbor, or plant them along her property line where you can also enjoy them.” For a moment I pause to wonder how in the world a property line is defined when everything that once identified ownership is gone. This is a time where harmonious living becomes essential, lest tensions run high. The neighbor is 80 years old, she deserves beauty, just as this woman does. However, she declines the shrub and accepts a bucket of daffodils I rescued from a road construction project earlier this spring. Her husband takes Maples and Poplars and is absolutely giddy over the Holly my cousin donated from near Raleigh.
As I’m about to leave I pull a Rose of Sharon from the backseat and say, “Listen here my brace-wearing-sister, husbands don’t need to know everything. This is from my Mother in Law’s place and it rarely bloomed because there was too much shade.” I pull the label off the pot and say, “She would want you to have it. You plant this baby in the full on sun. She will bloom for you. The hummingbirds will love her and her beauty will make you smile. You are worthy of all the beauty this world has to offer.”
As I drove away, I reached for another crumpled napkin from the glovebox.