OBNOXIOUS CEDAR TREES

As a child I heard occasional comments about a cedar tree in the country cemetery at Necessity, Texas.  It was obscuring my grandfather’s tombstone.  I began to notice it more and more after my grandmother’s death in 1950.  My grandfather had died seventeen years earlier, and the family had placed a double stone at his grave.  When my grandmother died, the tree completely covered both sides of the stone.  I wondered how workers were going to inscribe her death date on the stone.  Somehow, they did.  Perhaps they lay on their stomachs to work.

For many years, I thought little about the tree and another growing beside it.  During the seventies, we began regularly attending the annual gatherings held at the cemetery.  By this time, the trees were also hanging over my parents’ tombstones.  It was impossible to walk around the stones in our plot. Ken felt it was inconsiderate that the trees had been allowed to cover my grandparents’ stone and were about to do the same to my parents’ stones.  He began to inquire whether anyone ever came to care for the graves in the plots around the trees. No one seemed to know the family. We never saw anyone there.  There were old sandstone markers on the ground.  He wanted to cut the trees down.  My brother told him that if they were cut down, everyone would think that he had cut them.  He didn’t want that responsibility in the event someone might be upset.  Ken reluctantly agreed not to chop down the cedar trees.  The trees continued to grow taller and fuller.  They irritated Ken more and more.  He disappeared one day, saying he was going to do some work at the cemetery.  I didn’t ask what he was going to do, and he offered no information.  I did not see a chain saw, so I did not think he could do too much damage.

The next time we went to the cemetery, Ken kept looking at the trees in disbelief.   I saw him talking seriously to my brother.  My brother had a, “You did what?” look on his face.  I suspected that the trees had been given a dose of something, and that Ken was expecting them to at least look sickly.  However, whatever he did to them did not have the expected results.  It was like he had fertilized them.  They flourished, growing even taller and fuller.

My brother died in 2003.  Some time later, we went to the cemetery.  This time the chain saw went along.  We pulled up to the plot.  The trees were going to be history.

We looked in disbelief.  In shock, we got out and walked over to the trees.  The area around them was cleaned.  The old stones had been reset.  There was a bench and a flat marker between the trees.   Forget cutting them down.  They were now a sanctuary.

Several years ago, my grandparent’s stone needed some repair.  The family surname was facing away from the trees.  I asked Ken’s opinion about having the workmen turn the stone with the surname facing the trees.  He thought it would be a good idea as the names, birth dates, and death dates of every one in the plot would be facing the same direction.   He did casually mention that their names would be reversed.  I had not considered that.

One cousin and I are their only remaining grandchildren.    I called my cousin and asked if he had any objections to turning the stone.  He said, “Do it.”  I then mentioned that their names would be reversed.  He thought for a second, and said, “I will never tell.”  I told him that I was reasonably sure they would not object.  So, I did it.  My grandmother’s name, Lenora Williams, is now over my grandfather’s grave.  His name, Henry R. Williams, is now over my grandmother’s grave.  I visualize my little grandmother looking down from above with an amused smile on her face.

We also had curbing put around the plot.  When we went to check out the work, the workmen had trimmed the trees in order to work under them.  We can now walk underneath them.

The old trees have survived wind, rain, snow and drought.  Here is how they look now: old and scraggly.