We did everything he suggested, but bark continued to shed[26]. For the next two years, we nursed the tree while other arborists paraded through and prescribed additional treatments.
Over time, whole sheets of bark began falling. And then, entire branches withered[27]. Eventually, half of the tree was dead. The other half, facing our house, was struggling in a last, desperate gasp. Every square inch was teeming with tuftlike greenery,[28] like a rain forest.
An arborist delivered the dreaded news. He told us the tree wasn’t safe; we needed to cut it down. That night, unable to sleep, I wandered into the hallway[29] and found my daughter awake. We tiptoed to the window to look at our beloved beech.
For the next couple of weeks, my family couldn’t shake its grief. Life without the beech seemed unimaginable. How could it have died on our watch? Had we loved it too much? Done something wrong?
A week before the fated Tuesday, Bill from next door interviewed me about the tree’s decline. He videoed the wormholes, beetle infestation, and rot and e-mailed it to our neighbors.[30] On Sunday, we hosted a goodbye party. Thirty neighbors gathered around the beech for the last time. There were people I had never met or even seen before. Our reclusive[31] neighbor across the street showed up. A family with a days’ old baby took its first outing. Bill shot another video for those who couldn’t come.
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