The Sycamore

The morning sky over the Delta looked like it was lined with Mother of Pearl.  No painter could create the beauty of a Mississippi Delta sunrise except for one. And He was the master. A thousand sermons couldn’t reinforce the man’s faith as well as the beautiful landscape he saw when he parked his truck. But then he felt dread.

He was there to do a job he didn’t want to do.

His elderly mother and father emerged from the family homeplace and greeted him with a steaming cup of coffee. The screen door creaked and slammed shut, leaving the old family dog whimpering at the doorway, wanting to join the family reunion.

“Thank you for doing this for us, ” his dad said.  The man hugged his mom and did the same to his dad.  He and his father used to just shake hands, but when his grandfather died, his dad became a much softer man. Silly barriers to affection quickly fade when mortality comes into play.

“No problem. I’m sorry it has to be done.”  He walked back out to the truck and got his chainsaw out and gassed it up.

In the back of his parent’s yard was a giant sycamore tree. It was mighty, grand and dominated the other trees around it.  The man gazed at it and it reminded him very much of the Moon Tree planted on Mississippi State’s campus. His parents, natives of Georgia, had planted the switch in the backyard to remind them of their former home. They also hoped that it would give their new baby boy’s room some shade on the hot Delta summer days.

And  grow it did.

They had grown up together, each adding rings as the years passed.  The sycamore gave him shade and a giant playground.  He remembered climbing to the top of the it when he was 13 and seeing all the way to the Mississippi River.  He remembered reading Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree while sitting beneath its branches. “Don’t worry, tree,” He promised. “This won’t happen to you.  You’ll be around forever.”

It was naivety of youth.

Lightning had put an end to the tree.  Four months earlier, a severe storm had blown through the Delta and a bolt struck the mighty sycamore.  The scar left the tree vulnerable to tiny bugs.  Soon the mighty tree began to die.  The nice gentleman at the Extension Service just shook his head when he looked at it.  “Nothing could be done,” he proclaimed. “It had to be removed.”

“I feel like I’m about to cut off one of my own limbs.”

He and his dad looked at the tree.  A slight breeze blew, rattling the brown, dead leaves.  “Life goes on, boy.  Someday you’ll face this kind of decision with us.”

“Um, dad, you saying I’ll have to cut you and mom up with a chainsaw?”  Both men laughed, adding a little levity to the moment.

But the man knew exactly what his dad meant.  Time gives so many gifts but then begins to cruelly take them away.

“Hey, dad — you mind if I do one more thing before we get to work?”  His dad eyed his son and knew exactly what was on his mind.

“Sure son, take your time.”

The man walked up to the tree and saw where he had carved his and Becky Gibson’s initials on it.  He saw where he had marked his height. And then he grabbed on to the lowest branch and began to climb.  Every branch propelled him higher. And every inch he climbed shaved more time off his age.

By the time the man had reached the top of the old tree, he was once again a 13-year-old boy, gazing out with wonder toward the Mississippi River. He thought of Luke 19.4 and smiled — “So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.”

Then the sun broke through the light overcast and a single beam of light illuminated the old tree one last time.