Life Lessons from an UndefeatedTree

I won’t say how much George Floyd’s untimely and shocking manner of demise has shaken me.

There, I just did!

It got me thinking. It totally shook me right down to my foundation! No matter whether I meditated once, twice or six times a day, the inner shaking was palpable.

Then we had a wind gust day, and a tree in our back yard fell over.

This was a beautiful tree! So full of LIFE!

Then, one day, came a gust of wind. The Tree was swayed but it held on.

One gust followed another. The Tree was bending, the roots holding on.

Then, a glance out of the window showed a patch of green where normally we would see purple.

The Tree had lost its hold. The wind had won. The Tree lay on it’s side. It had given up.

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I made some frantic phone calls. The guy who does our Yard Work saw the photo.

“It’s dead”, he said. I’ll take it out for such and such money.

Just as the workers arrived with their chainsaws, my wife said,

“No! We’re saving that Tree!”

Over the 20+ years of marriage, I have learned which battles to fight! This was not one of them. I walked out, and from a distance of 8 feet (remember, we’re still in COVID-19 #socialdistancing mode), I asked the guys to keep the main trunk untouched. They were to just chop off the branches and walk away. They told me, “Man, it’s done. Let us take it all away now or it will cost you more later.” I said, “Let’s see.”

Once the branched were removed, we walked around the Tree. We started pushing the trunk up. It was heavy. Definitely more than just the two of us could manage.

Our neighbors came out. One of them offered up some stakes. The other offered to put on a mask and come out to help push it up. We gladly accepted their help. Stakes were put into the ground. The main trunk was pushed up while pulling on some rope. Getting some Mechanical Advantage was the key.

After some effort, the main trunk was uprightish, the main emphasis on the ish part!

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Over the days we walked around the Tree. Made sure the stakes were holding up. We determined whether or not the roots were taking hold. How?

Once the roots take hold, the ropes holding up the trunk would become a bit slack. We would then make a couple of more rounds around the stake in the ground to add a bit more tension and help the roots pull it up some more! Physics was at Work!

Over several weeks, the Tree realized that it had not lost after all. It was simply knocked down. Someone had propped it up again and it would eventually WIN:

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Yayy! The Tree is now sprouting new leaves!!

I quickly realized that unless I added some significant mechanical advantage to it, the growth of the branches and leaves would soon overwhelm the ropes holding the trunk to the stakes. I sent the above photo to a smart Mechanical Engineer (ME) colleague of mine. I asked him for some design help to prop up the branch at the hanging vertical rope.

Being the smart man that he is, Mr. Karl Beers sent me this below sketch using a piece of 2x3 which could be bought from any of the local hardware store:

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Coming from a ME to a ChE, Karl had to dumb down the design! After all, a lowly Chemical Engineer has to be able to build it! The sketch had all the details necessary to build, including the precise location of the screws and the brilliant, absolutely brilliant design hole to tie the v-notch to the branch under which the prop would rest. This way a dog or a cat or something else would not just dislodge the prop from below the branch!

With just a little bit of help, a down-and-out will get right back up!

Life, all life, is an expression of the Universe moving from the unmanifest to the manifest. Life will find a way.

Life is Resilient!

L.I.F.E. M.A.T.T.E.R.S.