Weathering Storms E-Book

Alice Taylor

• Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 148

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

As we go through life we weather many storms. We lose family members, close friends and animals we love, and they take with them the warmth and shared memories of many years. Alice discovered recently that the loss of a much-loved tree, planted before she was born, caused an emotional upheaval she had not anticipated. With the loss of her favourite tree that had enriched her life for decades, she began to ask herself are there ways to make later life rich and interesting? How do you make growing older a good time in life?  She has no answers, only a story to be shared.

Leseprobe

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About A Place Called Home by Alice Taylor

‘Individual reflections with a universal resonance …’

Irish Examiner (Cork Books of the Year)

‘Excellent’

C103 ‘Cork Today’ with Patricia Messinger

For more books by Alice Taylor, see obrien.ie

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Cover picture Uncle Jacky’s apple tree, the focal point and special go-to place in Alice’s garden, which grew there for over a hundred years.Photo: Emma Byrne5

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To Gear

who enriches my life with his kindness

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Contents

Title PageDedication1.Goodbye, Old Friend2.After the Storm3.Begin Again4.The Aga and Me5.Older, But Not Wiser6.Candlemas Day7.The Young Ones 8.Weathering Storms9.A Night Out10.Gifts that Grow11.A Delightful Day12.Our Boy13.All She Had Was Hope14.The Innishannon Blackbirds15.The Blessings of Bookshops16.The Music of the Mountains17.Togetherness18.Build the Nest and the Singing Bird Will ComeOther books by Alice Taylor About the AuthorCopyright

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Goodbye, Old Friend

Clung to the ground with shock, I simply could not believe my eyes. The whole garden was buried in an avalanche of huge grey branches. They towered above my head. There was no entry point to the garden as all the paths had disappeared under these enormous branches. Covered in grey lichen and ivy, they rose above and beyond my vision. Where on earth had they all come from? And yet, there was something strangely familiar about them, but they belonged in another place, arching high into the sky. Then an ice-cold spark of reality penetrated my shocked stupor, but I went into instant denial. It simply could not be. This just could not have happened. A chilly spark of reality determinedly pierced my numbed brain. There could only be one explanation. These had to be the branches of Uncle 12Jacky’s apple tree. But what were they doing drowning the entire garden in a tidal wave? What had happened?

I had to find out. I did not want to find out. But I had to. So, with a sense of dread, I forced my way along beside the hedge at the bottom end of the garden, which was the only route through this fallen forest, until I reached the far side. From there I was able to push my way across to where Uncle Jacky’s old apple tree had stood for over a hundred years. But not anymore. Her great trunk lay prostrate on the ground and the gaping crater beneath told its own story.

Planted by Uncle Jacky at the beginning of the last cen­tury, her branches had been intertwined through his and our lives. She had been the location for Christening, Holy Communion and wedding photographs not only of our family but many village families as well, and in her shade many babies, who had later climbed her, had been shel­tered from the sun. In times of pain and struggle she oozed comfort into stressed bodies. She was the go-to place when you came in the garden gate as all paths led to her. On very warm days when it was too hot to sit out in the sun, she provided cooling shade. The table beneath her was the loca­tion for solo teas, family gatherings and entertaining visitors. Here the Japanese translator of To School through the Fields had marvelled that in her shade he was enjoying an apple cake made from her previous season’s apples.

As I stood there remembering, I realised that tears were streaming down my face. Can you grieve for a tree? Now I know that you can. The previous night a storm had 13rampaged across the country causing devastation, but I thought that my sheltered garden was safe. Now I knew that no place was safe. The heart of the garden, and my old friend and comforter, was gone.

And then I remembered my dream. The night before the storm came I had a strange dream which I am a bit reluctant to write about as some may think that I am crazy, but some things in life are beyond understanding. In the dream I was back in Uncle Jacky and Aunty Peg’s old house, now long gone, and opened the door into their little sitting room. Aunty Peg was standing there all dressed in black, which was unusual as she seldom wore black. I felt a spurt of delight on seeing her and ran forward to give her a hug, but she was gone before I reached her. The following morn­ing when I woke up, the dream was still vivid in my mind and I recalled my mother telling me that if you dream of the dead they could be coming to tell you that something is about to happen. Had Aunty Peg come to forewarn me about the tree?

This tree had been interwoven through her life and had provided large crops of apples with which she made pots of apple jelly, jam and her big juicy ‘Aunty Peg apple cakes’ which I still make every year for the Hospice and Alzhei­mer’s fund-raising days that we hold in my house. She and Uncle Jacky constantly sat beneath it to take a rest during hours of gardening and visitors were taken there to relax after a garden tour. The day Uncle Jacky died Peg sat under it for hours, and many of her friends joined her to chat 14about him and recall his graciousness and kindness. When they were both gone and the garden came into my care, the seat under Jacky’s apple tree became my go-to place where I felt close to them and grateful for the blessings that they had handed on. When life was challenging I sat beneath her and she calmed my turmoil. Other trees and shrubs grew around her but Jacky’s apple tree was the queen of the garden.

Every spring she filled the sky with her beautiful apple blossoms and even last summer had produced a large crop of apples. Her early windfalls fed the birds and bees, and the unreachable apples on her top branches continued to feed them for months. A multiplicity of insects and bugs lived along her ivy- and lichen-clad branches and birds nested in her grooves and hollows. A little black skillet pot, hanging off a back branch, provided a family of blackbirds with their water supply. She was truly an Earth Mother. I ran my hand lovingly along her gnarled old trunk in appreciation of all the blessings that she had given us.

Then I needed to share the trauma with someone who would understand, and Eileen, who always seems to be in the right place at the right time, just then came out the back door into the yard. Without telling her what had happened, I led her up into the garden She stood at the gate and gasped in dismay; unlike me, she got it immediately.

‘Oh my God, is it Jacky’s apple tree?’ she asked in a shocked voice. I nodded and led her through my recently created burrow along by the hedge and circled to the far side of the garden until we arrived at the base of the apple tree. It was a 15sobering sight. ‘I can’t imagine the garden without it,’ I told her. ‘It will be very different,’ she agreed, and then suggested, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if Paddy carved something out of the wood and then you would have some of Jacky’s tree for­ever?’ This was such a comforting thought as over the years her husband Paddy, a farmer and wood turner, had created some beautiful things out of wood.

Then Mike, who as a child had gardened here with Jacky, arrived. ‘Wow!’ he declared, peering into the root pit, ‘her roots were pure rotten. Her time was up. That storm had no bother toppling her.’ If only I could be as pragmatic as Mike.

Wedged beneath her fallen trunk was one end of the old iron garden seat, which, over the years, had seated so many. It was difficult to know how damaged it was – we would only know that when it was eventually freed. The iron rose bow, or arch, beside her had taken a fair wallop too and was bent over. Would that straighten up? Around her were many bat­tered shrubs and smaller trees. It was a depressing sight so we withdrew to the warm kitchen where Eileen and I had tea.

Later I rang a neighbour with a chainsaw and the gear to clear things up, and enquired about moving the body. That night I rang my sister Phil, a far more knowledgeable gardener that I am, to report and talk over what had hap­pened. After a long discussion she decided, ‘Well, if it had to happen, this is the best time of year because in winter you won’t be out in the garden as much as you would at other times of the year. And, as well as that, it will give you time to work out the best plan for the way ahead.’ I felt better after 16that phone call as my sister had focused me forwards, which was what I needed just then.

Then early the following morning Paddy came to decide what lengths of timber he would need for his wood turn­ing. ‘No problem finding suitable pieces,’ he said, ‘but it will need a good drying-out period.’ ‘It will be easier when all this is gone,’ I told him, looking at the mountain of fallen branches. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. And being a farmer added, ‘Same as having a dead cow on the farm – the faster it gets moved the better.’ True for Macbeth as he contemplated killing the king, Duncan, I thought: ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly’ – though in our case the ‘king’ was already dead!

So, I was relieved when my friend and his helpers came, and the chainsaw began to whine, and the smaller branches began to be taken out through the gate. With the first bark of the chainsaw the giant trunk rolled off the back of the garden seat, which emerged completely intact. I was so grate­ful for that. Then when another giant piece of trunk fell off the rose arch, that too tilted back to its former position with the climbing rose still hanging in there. Hopefully in the weeks ahead she, like me, would recover from this upheaval. And the little skillet pot had also survived the crash-landing, so the blackbirds still had their drinking fountain, though in a different location. This old tree, that had grown old grace­fully, had now departed in a similar fashion, inflicting as little surrounding damage as possible. In death as in life, she was gracious.17

18But just as I began to think that the job might get done before evening, the rain came, heavy and persistent, so work had to be abandoned. The following day was Sunday, with a very bad forecast, so all was on hold until Monday. But sometimes life works itself out in ways better than we plan because in retrospect I now know I needed that breathing space before parting with my old friend. We needed time to say goodbye. Not comparing like with like, but maybe that was the wisdom of the old house wakes that could last for days, as this gave people time to absorb the parting. Good­bye takes a long, long time.

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After the Storm

The lads with the chainsaws had gone and I stood in the garden surrounded by the remains of Jacky’s apple tree. Due to bad weather there had been a few days’ intermission before they could come back and take down the tree trunk and cut it into more manageable pieces. During those chilly days I walked around the fallen tree hoping that a plan might formulate in my addled brain. Vague ideas assembled and disassembled. But uppermost in my mind was the wish that this old friend in some way or another could sleep peacefully in the garden that she had graced for so many years. But how best to do this? My instinct told me that this was possible, but my brain needed to work out a plan.20

Now that the lighter branches were cut up and gone, the beautiful old curving tree trunks were visible and I felt that 21by walking around them a solution might emerge. Over the years old tree trunks develop fascinating gnarled and twisted shapes, works of art fashioned by nature. I was surrounded by such pieces. They made for very interesting viewing – some incorporating magnificent, curved elbows and inter­esting humps and hollows. Their wood-ends were almost like a sunset in colour, with a soft orangey mellow glow. These pieces belonged and deserved to stay in this garden. When I voiced this idea to a pragmatic son, he gave me a questioning look and asked, ‘Have you decided that they will see you out?’ Maybe I had!

Jacky’s apple tree and I had long consultations and even­tually a plan emerged. Then came a dry afternoon and the helpers returned, and by then I had a vague plan of action for how to incorporate the tree pieces back into the garden. The helpers had the muscle and strength for the job and I was supposed to have the plan, but it was still a work in pro­gress in my brain. I directed the lads to cut the huge trunks into manageable lengths and though they had no idea what I had in mind, they did everything they could to accommo­date what they probably thought was a rather weird process. Their work on fallen trees would normally finish up in a pile of logs for the fire, but not on this occasion. Jacky’s apple tree was not for cremation. It would hopefully rest back into the bosom of mother earth here in its home place. That was the plan.

I was very aware that this was no time for dithering or changing your mind in mid-motion as these pieces were 22heavy ladies. However, some things have the happy knack of working themselves out as they unfold. And that is exactly what happened. We rolled – or rather the two lads rolled – the biggest and heaviest pieces along the paths and many of them found their homes almost by themselves, some as little tables at seat-ends, while others became interesting stand-alone statements at garden corners, and the remainder cre­ated unique boundaries around the garden beds. We worked it out as we went along, and gradually I found my rhythm and the two lads got the hang of what I had in mind. As all the pieces slowly found their resting places the huge pile in mid-garden gradually decreased and eventually was no more. Jacky’s apple tree was resting all around the garden where she belonged. I was so happy with that.

But the garden still had a battered look. Some of the shrubs were lopsided and needed to be straightened up or pruned back into shape; birds’ watering troughs and various garden statuary lay prone all around the place; the paving slabs on which the seat under the tree had rested were upended, and the beds and paths were smothered in debris.23

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It was time for my buddy and ‘tidy-upper’, John, to come to my rescue. He arrived next morning bright and early and whizzed into action. He dug up and relaid the paving stones around the tree, and did a super job as usual. He has the innate ability to see what needs to be done and knows how to do it. Back in the home farm whenever my mother needed a thorough yard tidy-up she would term the farm worker who did it to her satisfaction as ‘a great shorer’. I 25didn’t know what that meant but I got the idea – and later discovered the term was used about those workers who built the retaining walls to support the sides of excavations! An important job indeed. My mother’s terminology always comes to mind when I see John in action. But I always keep in mind as well that John is no Monty Don and needs to be kept far away from a pruner as he would cheerfully cut the head off you and tell you that you looked much better with­out it! But as well as being a willing worker he is so funny and witty that working with him is highly entertaining. The ideal man in the present circumstances.

One of my treasured Jacqueline Postill shrubs was filling the garden with her beautiful winter scent though she had been in the line of the tree-fall and had taken a fair batter­ing. Together we pruned it back, with John highly amused that I was actually – at last! – trusting him with a pruner. The Bridal Wreath shrub was totally askew and had to be cut back drastically; it would be interesting to see how well she would recover. Other damaged plants needed a short back-and-sides. With extra light now pouring into the garden a rethink of layout was warranted. This resulted in a lot of shifting and shunting, with some discussion, agree­ments and disagreements, until finally we were both satis­fied with the outcome. John raked up all the debris from the storm and wheelbarrowed it into the trailer that the leader of the chainsaw team had obligingly dropped in that morning. When a calamity happens, good neighbours are a great blessing. Then John cracked into action with his 26