9. The Family Tree
I have been reading Jung Chang’s Wild Swans and on numerous occasions, as she paints the landscape of the story, she mentions the Cypress tree. Unfortunately, my ability to identify a plant is limited to whether it's a tree or a flower. The book — an account of three generations of women living in 20th century China — is equal parts harrowing, touching and illuminating. I felt I needed to have a more vivid experience and do justice to the pictures in my head by looking up what a Cypress tree was.
I was immediately struck by how similar these trees were to the one we used to have where I grew up. I had wondered what kind it was but never bothered finding out. We were content to call it the Christmas tree as it was pine-shaped and green. This was before we knew how to use the internet and I guess we could have tried harder with an encyclopaedia but we were hardly botanists.
It was probably the nicest looking tree I ever saw in my childhood and it felt extra special because no one else on our street had one like it. It came with the house my parents bought in the early 90s. They didn’t come from abundance and they were living with my grandmother before I came along so paying for the house meant a lot of sacrifices. We couldn’t afford nice things but at least we had this magnificent tree standing firm on our front porch — a reminder that some of the best things in life were free.
When we moved in, the tree was around the height of five toddlers stacked on top of one another. It had needle-like leaves that looked like feathers, and a soft and slender trunk. The branches were twigs, thinner than straw, and could only hold a caterpillar’s weight. There were leaves growing around the trunk into the shape of a cone. As a kid eager to play out the adventures I had read from the Enid Blyton books, the tree proved too inconvenient for climbing.
It was still by all accounts an impressive tree. It had lived through the harshest of winds and the warmest of seasons and also somehow eluded pestilence. All of this without the slightest help from us. To be honest, I think it stood a better chance without our interference. We notoriously lacked the fine skills required for horticulture. None of the plants we tried growing survived and eventually all that was left standing was the one thing we didn’t touch.
When we sold the house in ’04, the tree had grown slightly past the ground floor window. We asked the new home owners not to chop it down, and they agreed to keep it as long as it did not get in the way of whatever plans they had. This didn’t inspire much confidence but we secretly hoped that in time they too would come to recognise the sanctity of this tree.
It’s been a long while since I visited the old house. Thanks to Street View, I can now spy on my old neighbourhood from the comforts of home. This is just as well, because I might not be able to make a compelling case for travelling across state lines to check on a tree.
This is from 2013 and it looks like it has definitely grown a lot bigger and taller than when we left it. I’m also not sure if it’s been pruned or it’s a glitch from Google imaging but I can’t seem to make out the bottom half.
This is from 2018 and honestly it looks like it has seen better days. By my calculations, the tree should be at least 30 years old. The leaves are no longer as bright as they once were. I read somewhere that if they start turning brown, there is rot in the roots. I don't know what that means for the future of this tree and how long it has before it succumbs to deterioration, but I am grateful to have witnessed it surpass the first floor.
When we said goodbye to the tree, the branches of our home were not yet broken. A lot has changed since then — bruised egos, wounded hearts, and severed ties. But nonetheless it is comforting to know that a relic from our past outlived the fraught effects of our big move to the city. The tree at the old house continues to extend towards the sky and in that way it will serve as the last witness to a promise once made.