It was a beautiful day for my Lenore to die. The morning sun crested the top of the mountain in radiancy. She rested her hunched back against my trunk while her withered hands sank in the soil as she fought for every breath. Her long, white braid snagged on my scraggly bark. My branches stretched towards the heavens and swayed in the gentle breeze. The sun blanketed us in gentle comfort as if the earth sighed in relief from winter’s talons. Yes, it was a beautiful day to die.
My Lenore’s wheezing breath permeated the soft morning. Nature and death are two sisters rarely separated. My first few winters, I learned this the hard way. As a new sapling, I’d been so proud of the leaves I’d managed to grow. Their supple veins were rich in color. I still remembered all of them.
Winter was a time of mourning – of retreating into oneself. Every year, I mourned the loss of my leaves as their lives were snuffed out in a flame of vibrancy. There was never anything I could do to stop it.
Lenore’s life flame flickered in and out. She grounded herself in my strength and I simply held her. My constant companion. My sweet Lenore.
“Rudolf.” Her whisper was hoarse.
It had been many years since she’d spoken my name. It was as familiar as it was foreign. Did she know I could hear her? That I’d always been able to hear her? I always tried to shield her from the sun with my branches. There was always plenty of firewood and sticks scattered among my roots.
In 1956, my darling and I had come to this mountain to build our dream home after the Korean War. I remember standing at the overlook with my arms wrapped around her. As we stood on the precipice, she’d howled like a wolf staking its claim. Her laughter sparkled in the air around us and her eyes danced in abandon. Her hair caressed my face as she lifted her arms to the heavens. She was meant for the wild.
“This is the place,” she whispered. I’d never forget the joy in her eyes. I would’ve done anything to see that light remain. I’d do anything to see it again.
Together, we’d built our cottage with little more than our bare hands. She surprised me by carving our initials into the foundation. We spent many happy years in that small, one-room building. Having met as children at an orphanage, we dreamt of having a large family and teaching them how to live off the land. My favorite thing – the thing I miss the most – was getting to hold her at the end of every day. It didn’t matter if I was in the city or in our perfect slice of paradise. As long as I had her to come home too, I was happy.
But that was a long time ago. Before I’d been taken from her. I’d only been thirty when I’d found the lump on my spine. It didn’t take long for the cancer to spread. Before the turn of the season, my precious Lenore stood by herself on this same spot. It took her the entire morning to dig my hole.
For days, she slept on my grave. Her tears moistened the ground between us. Live, my love, I wanted to tell her. My spirit was trapped to the grave. I tried to hold her, but her warmth never felt the brush of my touch. It wasn’t until the turn of winter that she was forced to sleep alone in the cottage. There was no light coming from the window, no smoke from the chimney. I waited every morning to watch her open the front door. It was the only way I knew she was still alive.
It was the same for months until spring clawed its warmth past winter’s desolation. It was that year that my tree was planted. I don’t know if the seed was dropped by a bird or carried by a squirrel. Perhaps Lenore had gone into town to buy seeds and accidentally dropped one. One day, the mound over my body was as barren as the day she laid me to rest. The next, a small seedling emerged from the heart of the grave. Lenore noticed it immediately and moved to snatch it up. But something stayed her hand as she brushed the delicate leaves.
My Lenore coughed, bringing me back to the present. Her wheezing was much worse now and the rattling in her chest was deafening. Thick blood coated her hand as she pulled it away. It was only a matter of time.
Her long, white hair fell over her shoulder as she suffered another fit. I’d long ago fallen in love with her hair. In our youth, it was a beautiful brown I adored running my hands through. My greatest regret was that I had to watch on the sidelines as her hair changed to white and wrinkles graced her beautiful skin. My hair never changed with hers; my skin decomposed rather than aged with my Lenore.
She’d always been so strong. From the day I met her in 1943, I’d known she was meant to be wild. We were eight years old in the orphanage when she’d waltzed up to me barefoot. The back of her dress was tucked into the front of her waistline to create makeshift pants. Her pigtails were frizzy, and her face dirt smudged.
“Rudolf Lancaster.” I remember the way she put her hands on her hips and jutted her chin at me. “You’re gonna marry me one day.”
“But I don’t want to marry you.” I hadn’t known how pointless it was to argue with Lenore then.
“Yes, you do.” She just smiled and shrugged. “You just don’t know it yet.”
Lenore always knew what she wanted. It had been her dream to bring us here. I’m surprised our home hadn’t been built from her tenacity and grit alone. I often wondered why she hadn’t left the mountain after the cancer took me. Why hadn’t she remarried? Or at least gone back to live in town? As my roots cradled her dying body, I knew I had my answer: that’s just simply who she was. Lenore was as fluid as the stream and as unmoving as the very mountain we lived on. She was resilient like the evergreens and independent as the fox. My love belonged here just as much as I did.
Her light flickered again and stayed dim for a moment longer. The sun peppered the ground through the shade of my leaves. The heat of the day warmed the earth. It was days like today where we would have explored our mountain together. But today, it was my honor to hold her while she breathed her last breath.
“I’m ready to go, Rudolf.” Oh, how I loved the sound of her voice.
Soon, my love.
She curled up on the hard ground and rested her head on one of my roots. She wheezed a few more ragged breaths before her chest slowed. Her light dimmed until it completely faded to dark. At sixty, my sweet Lenore exhaled one last time. There was no one to bury her body as she had done for me. So, I guarded her and protected her to the best of my ability. I hid her from the beating of the sun and blanketed her with my leaves in the night.
Despite my efforts, it doesn’t take long for the elements to overtake her body. Her limbs grew cold and stiff. My beloved’s body decayed every day until her flesh was stripped from her bones. The husk homed hundreds of insects and soon began to become one with the soil. Her remains melded into my roots and sunk beneath the surface. Nature will always reclaim its own.
When at last her body faded into me, it was as if the world had finally righted itself. My soil and her flesh became one. Everything that had once been Lenore dissolved into my stillness. A soft whisper echoed on the wind. A few weeks passed before a small seedling emerged from her resting place. An unfamiliar feeling of anticipation flutters in the heart of my trunk.
Soon, I would hold her for eternity.