The Last Walk 2
A society grows great
when old men plant trees
whose shade they know
they shall never sit in.
Greek Proverb
He who plants a tree
plants a hope.
Lucy Larcom
Building an
addition to one’s house isn’t quite like planting a tree. In deciding to build, Karen and I justified
the expense to ourselves by saying we could recoup our costs someday when we
sell it. In theory, adding to one’s
house is just another investment.
But context
changes things; it even changes the meaning of things. The real reason for building an addition, no
matter what we told ourselves about resale prices, was to give James and Jennie
more room. Our son and daughter-in-law
have lived with us for more than a year.
They’ve been careful to keep themselves to their small bedroom, and the
addition would give them more space. We
contracted with Matthew, our builder—and quickly modified the plan to add a
concrete pad for a hot tub. A hot tub,
we thought, might help with Karen’s persistent back pain.
Then we
learned Karen’s cancer has returned. We
enter a new phase in our life together, our last walk. For Karen especially this changes the meaning
of the addition and the hot tub. It
changes her garden. (Make no mistake,
the flowers, shrubs, trees, and garden paths are all her doing. Sometimes I dig holes where she tells
me.) In a few months or years someone
else will have her house and garden.
In the long
view, this has always been true. We all
know we will die someday. We know our
houses and gardens will pass to others.
Our accomplishments will be forgotten.
(Quick! What do you know about
your great grandmother’s great grandmother?
Your descendants won’t remember you either.)
We know we
will die. Usually, we don’t think about
it. Now that we’ve come to our last
walk, Karen and I have to think about it.
We’ve lived in our house 23 years.
Who will be here 23 years hence?
What will they be like? How will
they change the garden? Will they like
the hot tub?
Of course,
the Greek proverb is not only about trees.
It’s about caring for people we won’t live to see, people who won’t
remember us. We “plant trees” by
building houses, growing gardens, teaching children, and so on. There are myriad ways to contribute to a good
world for those who come after. One might
even “plant a tree” by voting!
As her
strength allows, Karen will tend her garden, write more music and make more
photographs. Small things, perhaps, like
building an addition to one’s house. Or
like planting a tree.
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