This picture was taken
on August, 30, 2011. The tall tree in the background is a cottonwood I named Elizabeth, after my
youngest granddaughter, and used in my book Cottonwood Place. She grows near a
creek on the back of my property that butts up to a neighbor’s property. All the trees in the background are mine. The
treeline is along our property and they are very tall, but Elizabeth shames
them all in her height. She towers over them because she is over 80 feet tall. Alexis was walking Sheena with me and we stopped in the neighbor’s
driveway so Sheena could sniff the drainage ditch and the mint growing in it.
Elizabeth the tree was over 200 feet away so you can get an even better idea of
how tall she is. From my driveway, which lies just beyond the treeline, I can hear her leaves rustling when the wind
blows even a little. When I brushed Sheena to get rid of the tons of hair she’d
shed, we sat on the back porch in the afternoons and listened to Elizabeth.
Most times she and the many birds were the only sounds we’d hear. More than
once I got the eerie feeling that heaven was like this: sunny, eternally green,
full of trees and blooming all over with flowers, peaceful creeks flowing
nearby, with animals that love us romping all around. The music of nature is
the only sound in that part of heaven. On my walk with Alexis that summer day, we could hear
Elizabeth’s leaves blowing even from that far away, Sheena was happily sniffing
and exploring as a dog should, and I was comforted with being able to forget
the future for a few minutes. Oh, by the way, Alexis is jealous that I haven’t
named a tree after her; I’ll have to find one and remedy that. We have a slightly shorter cottonwood on our property, I'll probably chose that one.
