Angi Aymond

Last week I drove by our old house.

And by our, I mean my family. The one I have created with my husband.

And old refers to the first little house we bought upon moving to Lafayette. In South Louisiana.

To be fair, I drive past it regularly on my way to church.

But this last week it caught my attention.

There, in both the front and back yards stand two oak trees, towering over the little house, into the yards of neighbors. Providing shade for the little house well beyond its borders.

Beneath its oversized limbs stands a tiny shed my husband built with the help of a friend. A friend whose skill and heart extend beyond their own borders.

Driving by this day, I turned onto the street I used as an address for eight years.

As I sat in my car, a flood of memories came pouring into my mind. My heart.

We bought that little house in the spring of 1997.

About a year later, my in-laws decided to sell their house, too. The house under which my husband had played with his Hot Wheels on roads of dirt he had crafted to just the right scale. The yard and neighborhood where he rode his motorcycle, no matter the season. The green acres where he learned the art of mowing and trimming grass. The piece of family dirt that connected him to memories of his grandparents who had lived just next door.

Our moving around over the years was no big deal. His parents moving? That was a bigger deal than he wanted to admit.

So, before papers were signed and money was exchanged. Before boxes started to stack, my hubby drove home.

What did he need? Want?

Nothing much. Just a couple of tiny oak trees growing on the property he had always known as home. With a shovel, he broke the dirt around two oak saplings, not even an inch in diameter at their widest spots. Frankly, it required little effort.

He placed them in a bucket to travel and headed south. Well, I’m sure he sat and ate something his mother had cooked for him first. Probably had some chocolate pie, too. But he eventually headed home.

When he pulled those little ‘trees’ out of the back of his truck, I laughed.

“Why did you dig up such tiny trees? We’ll never see them get big.”

(Proof that I have not always been as wise as I am now.)

He just looked at me. Shaking his head he walked to the backyard and began carefully digging the sapling’s new home. It was so small and fragile, hardly able to stand up on its own. Maybe about 4 feet tall.

But there it stood in all its glory.

He did the same in the front yard. A tiny baby oak, carefully planted in dirt its roots had never known.

As the weeks and months passed, those trees took root. He watered and hoped.

The next part is a bit fuzzy. I suppose I could spin you a good yarn about just how it might have happened.  But, I won’t. 

After much time (that sounds fair, right?), the trees started to grow. What I do remember is that the one in the backyard, the smallest one, was the tree that started growing the best. It grew limbs and leaves, like an oak tree should.

The tree in the front yard, well, she was a bit stubborn. And while the oak in the back  had decided it was home, growing by leaps and bounds, the oak in the front grew ever so slowly. After about 2 years, maybe three, I remember the funniest conversation. A conversation between my husband and the stubborn oak in the front.

He walked outside and began talking to the tree. Scolding her, in fact. He bragged on the tree in the back while threatening the one in the front with an axe if she didn’t start growing. Like an oak tree should.

And wouldn’t you know it, she began growing. She did!

My youngest was a climber of the tree in the back.

And while the oak in the front never reached that kind of growth before we moved from that little house, she was indeed growing well.

All of this came crashing like waves while I sat in my car. Staring at the size of those two baby oaks we had planted, now giant trees well outside the bounds I envisioned. Providing shade, producing oxygen. Extraordinary beauty.

I never saw that coming.

As I drove away, I realized that just like those oak trees, our lives are a testament to the seeds we plant and nurture.

Through the years, we’re just living life. Or so it seems at the present. Any given present.

Some years surviving; others thriving. Some years dry and thirsty, other years we are well-watered.

I wonder, apart from these two giant oaks, what kind of legacy am I leaving behind? How far will its reach extend?

What else have I planted to benefit the ones who follow me? Has my faith been too shallow, or did I plant it deeply enough, firmly enough to extend beyond my life’s borders?

Did I love well enough so that others might remember the One who showed me how to love? Did I laugh often enough, or was my heart too heavy with despair? Did I sing enough to prove that He is my joy? Was I grateful enough to prove He is sufficient?

Does enough of my life prove His enough-ness?

Whew! Let me go wash my face.

Oh, I want to live in such a way that I just might be someone’s grand oak tree. A place of safety. A place of rest. Living life as a giver and not a taker. Living my one beautiful life for the benefit of others, that they may know the goodness of God. Now. And later.

What legacies are you nurturing? What are you building? And leaving behind?

Friends, may we live well.

And leave well.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.  These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

DEUTERONOMY 6-5-9