God’s other book: In memory of a beautiful little show-off

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Is it normal to be in mourning for a tree? Because I certainly am.

Spring tried to come a little too early to the Midwest this year. Normally, I love an occasional 60-degree day in January, but there really can be too much of a good thing at times.

The unseasonably warm weather lasted a couple of weeks instead of a couple days and caused several of my perennials to start coming up. Some of our trees began to bud. Not good. Usually this doesn’t happen until March. Winter came roaring back, like it always does. Most of my perennials survived, but my beautiful Rose of Sharon tree didn’t make it.

My Rose of Sharon sat on the front corner of our house. From midsummer until the first frost, this lovely little show-off greeted me with hundreds of blossoms as I pulled into the driveway. Its abundant profusion of blooms seemed to shout, “Glory to God!” The bees and the hummingbirds loved it.

I’ll never know if it was climate change that caused such an abnormally warm January, but I do know I’m going to miss this amazing little tree.

21 thoughts on “God’s other book: In memory of a beautiful little show-off”

  1. I’m sorry, that tree was beautiful!! Definitely normal to mourn over the loss of flowers and trees, for me anyways! I completely get it! We always end up having flowers come up early and so we usually lose At least one each year this year I lost four Perennial flowers because they came up too early..Saddened right along with you, except for my flowers were probably a lot more inexpensive and easier to replace than that tree of yours!!

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  3. The neighbors had a very old beech tree that shaded half our house in the summer. Two years ago it started to come apart–literally. We could hear it moaning in the wind. They had to cut it down since it was not able to be saved. I miss it still.

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    • I lost some beautiful blue spruces a couple years ago as well, to some kind of fungus. I really, really hated to have to take them down, but what finally swayed my decision was that the neighbors in back of us still had a really beautiful blue spruce in their yard (close enough for me to still enjoy it) and I didn’t want it to catch the contagion. Luckily (knock wood!) it is still healthy.

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  5. I share your sorrow in the loss of your tree.
    Yes, it is ‘normal’ to grieve part of God’s beautiful creation that has brought you so much pleasure.
    However, thank you that in your wisdom you posted photos of this beloved tree.
    Now, it has blessed us too.
    I particularly enjoyed looking at the detail in one of the blossoms.
    Thanks for sharing. 🤗

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  8. Oh no! I’m sorry to hear about the tree. We had to get our pine cut down because it was starting to die. It was right beside the house and we were afraid it was going to fall from all the crazy winds we’ve been having this year. I didn’t realize how much I was going to miss it!!

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