Skeleton Tree
Why didn’t we cut down that old dead tree,
you ask? Well, let me tell you.
*
It all started with my Great Grandfather
Ellsworth Evans back in 1990 when I was 10. He was 110 years old when he died
of a heart attack in his sleep. Mom told me he never felt a thing, but when I
found him in the morning, he had a horrible expression on his face. I will
never forget those eyes. They still haunt me and speak to me at night, even
now. He been sick for a long time. Mom was so sick of looking after him all the
time. She complained on never getting sleep and was tired of, “Cleaning his
dirty ass.” When he passed, she couldn’t have a bigger smile on her face. Even
at the wake, she would walk around with a grin of that cat from that one story.
It was unsettling to say the least. I know now why she had that big grin, but I
didn’t at that time. That tree died that very night great grandpa E did. But it
was part of him and I didn’t want to see that tree cut down and my mom wouldn’t
go anywhere near it… She feared that tree.
*
Ellsworth was born 1880. He lived a very
protected and sheltered life. When he was ten, Ellsworth was given a shovel and
a tree sapling to plant for fun. It took E a few days to dig the hole and plant
his pride and joy. He enjoyed every second of pain he felt to plant this life
he can look after for the rest of his. This tree was his control. The only
control he had at this point in his life. He spent his life quiet and proper so
his mother wouldn’t punish him. His father was loving and wanted to build him
up, but she thought that would make him weak. His whole life he tried to live
up to her image of him, but he couldn’t please her. Ever. She died shortly
after his father did. His father died in his sleep from a heart attack and his
mother by suicide.
Ellsworth married the love of his life and
only had one daughter. He raised her and took care of this home as well as he
could. There wasn’t a lot around, but enough to maintain happiness. Life was
good. Life was good for a long time for them, until his wife died of
tuberculosis in 1910. His daughter didn’t understand and grew up bitter at E.
She died while giving birth to twins in 1945, a son and a daughter (my mom).
Ellsworth tried his best to take care of his grand kids but they had the same
bitterness towards him their mom had. My uncle died in a crash racing to the
hospital for E’s first heart attack. My mom never looked at him the same again
and blamed E for his death. But Ellsworth loved her with all his heart. He
tried to understand and be what she needed him to be, but she wasn’t having it.
My mom had me when she was 35 in 1980.
Great Grandpa Ellsworth LOVED me so much. I loved him back. I seemed to be the
only girl in the family’s history to. He would sing to me while we rocked in
his chair. He would sit at the little table with me and play tea party while
wearing a nail polish (which I painted) on his fingers. I always fell asleep in
his room while we watched TV and ate snacks. Of course my mom would come get me
out the room without waking me, because I would cry and hold on to the sheet
and doorway. I wanted to spend every minute with E. I knew his time was almost
out, but his spirit and heart were too strong to give into time. He was all I had.
My dad never came back the night I was born. He couldn’t stand being around
mom. Great grandpa Ellsworth was happy to fill in the role. He started to get
sick when I was five. Bad cough and hips wouldn’t support him anymore. My mom
had to stay home more and do business from the house. She would lose clients
because she would have to tend to him. He would be yelling in pain in the back
room and asking for water. By this time he couldn’t have that much water
because it wasn’t good for his lungs. She would bitch and bitch about cleaning
after him and giving him a bath. She wouldn’t feed him or give him water to minimize
his messes. I would spend every day after school talking and playing with E. I
would go outside and play on the tree he planted when he was a little boy, he
would watch me from the window with a big smile on his face. He would tell me
how much I reminded him of his wife. How pretty I was and how my smiled touched
a part of his soul only she visited. He made me feel special. I was a little
girl, but I knew how important he was to me. People like him don’t come around
too often and I was happy and very proud to have him as my great grandfather.
My mom thought otherwise of him. Called him weak and an asshole behind his back.
When I was 9, he had chest pains when we
were playing go fish and he couldn’t talk. He just sat there with closed eyes
and both hands on his chest. I ran and screamed for mom to do something.
“Mom! Great grandpa E is hurt!” I screamed.
“He is always hurt, Bella. He’s fucking
109 years old. Maybe he’ll go tonight.” Mom said bitterly.
“Stop that! Do something!” I begged and
begged. She just sat there going through her work papers, so I ran and called
911. Mother was not happy to see the ambulance and fire trucks outside.
“What the fuck are these people doing
here?! BELLA!! What did you do, you little shit!” Mom yelled at me from the
kitchen.
They took E to the hospital and he stayed
there for a few weeks. When he came back home, mom was pissed. She wanted him
to die in that hospital, and now she had medical bills piling up. She never
spoke to him again. She would just clean him and wash him and leave him be. I
made sure he ate and got the water he needed. By this time, it was okay for him
to have water and non-sweetened tea, but sometimes, I would give him the sweet
stuff that he likes. He would still smile and laugh with me. Tell me how he met
his wife. He loved talking about her. She died and he knew he wouldn’t find
anyone as special as her, so he didn’t look. He stayed in love with her until
the day he died. He used to fish at the lake every day after work. He said he
rarely caught anything, but enjoyed the sun kissing his skin. One day while he
was fishing from the dock he noticed a pretty blonde girl walking the path by
the lake. She would steal glances at him and smile. He would return smiles as
often as she gave them. He looked back to see if she was still around and fell
into the lake. He wasn’t the strongest swimmer, so he was thrashing around,
reaching for the dock, when a soft, little hand grabbed his and guided his hand
to the wood. Pulling as hard as she could, he got back onto the dock.
“Why fish from the dock if you can’t swim,
mister?” Anna said smiling.
“I know how to swim, Miss. I was enjoying
the water” He said laughing.
They talked for the rest of the evening
and met at the lake every day for a week. She was the first to take a kiss and
they were in love ever since.
I woke up and the house felt empty. I ran
into his room and they had E on a stretcher, taking him outside. With tears
filling my eyes I asked, “What happened?”
“He died in his sleep. His heart wasn’t strong
enough.” Mom said.
“Yes, it was! He has the strongest of hearts,
mom!” I yelled.
“You stop that now! He is gone and there
is nothing anybody can do. Now we can move on and live a normal fucking life.”
I ran outside just out of time to tell him
goodbye. The ambulance was already down the road. I wasn’t fast enough to catch
up. By the time I got back to the yard, Ellsworth’s tree started to lose its
leaves. By that night it was dead like it’s been dead for years. My mom would
never go by that tree ever since. For ten years, she would cut the grass and
leave the grass by the tree alone. I would have to go do it.
I lived missing him and his lightness he
had about him, and his endless love as well. I found a man that almost matches
the love Great Grandpa E had. I’m lucky to have him, and we were helping mom
out by this point. We were in the kitchen when my mom blurted out.
“One of these days, I’ll have the money
to pay someone to cut that fucking tree down. It gives me the creeps.” Mom said
to me one day while looking at it through the kitchen window.
“We are not cutting down Ellsworth’s tree.
He planted that when he was 10. Did you know that, or don’t you care to?” I
asked.
“I don’t care if the pope planted that
Skeleton Tree, I want it gone, and soon. I have nightmares about that tree.
Things I can’t even say out loud. For ten years I avoided that tree and it’s me
or it.”
Spring of 2010 I went outside to get the
trash cans from the street and noticed my mom swinging from the very top of the
tree with both her wrists cut. Blood was dripping down onto the base of the
tree and it was starting to bloom.
No one knows how she got up there, hung
herself and cut her own wrists. Never got solved either. They just marked it up
as suicide. That year the Skeleton Tree bloomed for the first time since 1990
but never bloomed again. I think Ellsworth finally moved on.
I could never tell my family this, but, I had
nightmares since E died that my mom smothered him in his sleep with a pillow.
That’s why he had horror on his face when I found him. His own daughter killed
him. He lived for love and died by love. I did get to say bye to him the last
day the tree was in bloom. I was sitting under it thinking of him and I heard
him whisper, “Goodbye, my love.” In my ear. I told him bye and that I loved
him, as well and cried under the tree for some time.
So we leave this house to you, new owner.
And I hope you keep that Skeleton Tree where it belongs. It’s just a ghost of a
tree planted by a lovely man. I would like to come back and visit it, since it
has been such a big part of my life. See you soon.
Sincerely,
Bella Evans
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