Last year, almost to the day, our town lost a symbol of its people. Hurricane-strength winds roared through our community leaving homes damaged, power outages, and trees...many, many trees destroyed. I blogged about the storm and if you're interested in reading about it, go: HERE.
Though many trees fell, none had a bigger impact on the community as a whole as did the Christmas tree near the city cemetery. Of course, for 11 months of the year, it was just a huge pine tree. After Thanksgiving, however, it transformed to this huge symbol of the season that could be seen clearly from miles away. I can still remember driving home late one day and seeing the tree thinking, I should really go take a picture of the tree. The next day it was gone. Here's what it looked like the day of the storm.
The family, more than anyone, was devastated. Each time during the past year I drove by the house, the space where the tree once stood called out to all of its loneliness.
Two weeks ago I noticed the space was gone and where the tree once proudly stood, a new, albeit much smaller, tree took its place. Driving home from the show I noticed the family had decorated it.
The new tree is not as stately or as grand, but it must have cost a pretty penny for the family to relocate a mature pine tree to their yard. The new tree will, hopefully, remain for years and become, once again, something the community can see and know that the Christmas season really never starts until the big pine tree by the city cemetery is ablaze with holiday lights. I'm glad it's back.
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