It’s all about the trees. The easily climbable red maple in the front yard at the edge of the driveway, the giantess silver maple next to the house that shaded it all summer, whose branches could never in an eight-year-old’s wildest dreams be reached, the one that hung the tire swing for the whole neighborhood to play on. The two white pines along the back of the property that reached up to the heavens, saved me from having to mow under them, and never complained when we bolted plywood along an upper trunk to create a sap-induced tree house. The ginormous fir in the side yard that stood next to our ever-present volleyball/badminton net—yes, the one that swallowed up not only the birdies but then the rackets that we tried to knock them down with, and then even the basketball, until I would be forced to climb halfway up and retrieve our game. The three apple trees at the edge of the vegetable garden that made pies and tarts and applesauce that lasted all winter. Even the stump of the giant oak whose fertile remnants grew into a flower garden. These trees filled my childhood with their variety, their strength, their steadfastness.

Even now, years later, I cannot imagine my life without trees. As I look out my front window, I catch a glimpse of the silver maple shading our yard, peek out the back to see the two ashes that keep the grass from drying up, especially the one that Isabella already loves to climb and that holds the clothesline that we use all summer, and the small crab apple we planted ourselves after Riona’s birth, marking our family with another generation of trees that one day my children will always remember.