The speed with which Sam responded left no doubt about his view of the seriousness of the decay. The cavity at the base of the trunk on the uphill side was the visible symptom of its ailment; the tough, callus tissue around the opening, testimony to the tree’s effort to withstand the invasion of contaminating fungi. I understood the need to toughen up against adversity. “You can suppress the disease, but you can’t eradicate it. Basically, you’re just delaying the inevitable.” I was quiet. Similar to my aging system of veins and arteries – my medicine helped, but it didn’t cure. Mid-August and the oak’s leaves still looked as fresh and green as they had in May. That wasn’t the case last year. Then, the leaves had a ragged look, wearied, it seemed, by violent summer storms. That was when I noticed how gnarled the lower limbs appeared, resembling grotesque versions of the arthritic joints on my battered hands and feet. Within weeks, thousands of acorns would drop. Every October for the past three years, my young grandson and I had filled empty flower pots with the light green nuts. “Shiny faces without features,” I’d called them. “Wearing helmets,” he’d added. At the end of December, we’d carried the pots up the hill and emptied the acorns at the base of the sleeping giant, a final helping for woodland creatures preparing to hibernate. Dormancy, the oak conveyed, was the best way to defend against the cold. I took its cue, glided into slow motion, contented to modify my energy output. “What did the needle test tell you?” I asked the arborist. Not long before, I’d watched Sam and Dr. Neil, the company tree surgeon, use a special drilling device to check the extent of interior decay. “In fact, the test showed about ten to twelve inches before we hit decay on the front side.” “That sounds hopeful.” “Except that on the back side, we hit the soft stuff at only two to four inches. That’s where the holding roots are.”
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