Spring is here, and the fig tree in my front yard is covered in fresh green leaves.

Phew.

Not long ago, the yard guy told Ray that the tree won’t last much longer. It’s got some sort of incurable something. We’ve grown accustomed to losing our favorite trees. Fourteen years ago, when we moved into this house, the front yard held both an apple tree and a pear tree. Both died almost immediately. We managed to let the lemon cross with the kumquat, resulting in inedible orange-ish lemons (the fact that I never remember to fertilize may well have something to do with that). And so on.

I am not a gardener.

But the fig tree has held on. It’s gigantic. So is its neighbor, immediately to the west, a big, bushy pine.

To be honest, I hate the pine tree. I’ve long wished it would drop dead. The needles get everywhere — both in the front and back yards, the tree is that big — and the tree sits so close to the house (it predates a remodel by the previous owner) I fear it will take out the dining room in a summer monsoon.

That pine tree is going strong. No one has predicted its demise — except for Ray, who got an estimate on taking the thing out. It wouldn’t be cheap, but cost aside, we both felt a little guilty about it. The tree guy says the tree is strong, shouldn’t come down in a storm or cause any more harm than prickly needles on the patio. Still, he’d be happy to chop it down and grind the stump, for the right price.

As is often the case, my dear friend Trish put words to my uneasy feeling. “You never notice a big tree is there til it’s gone,” she mused the other day over coffee, when I mentioned the pine tree and its possible fate. “They absorb so much noise.”

And, she added, “it just seems like bad karma to chop down a tree just to chop it down.”

OK, I can live with the needles. But I’m not sure I can live without my beloved fig. That fig tree’s held every pinata for every one of the girls’ birthday parties, since long before Sophie could hold a stick.

A couple years ago, Annabelle gave up on the home birthday party. Sophie’s have always been at home. This year she wants to go to Chuck E. Cheese or Pump It Up or the local candy store, but I’m thinking I might try to convince her to have her birthday party at home.

This next week holds a lot of uncertainty — they’ll announce lottery numbers at the arts charter school we’re trying to get Annabelle into. And I’ll attend Sophie’s IEP, where we’ll find out just what kinds of resources the school is willing to offer, in the wake of last week’s terrible meeting.

No matter what happens next week, I know that someday soon, the certainty of the tree we’ve grown in the form of a neighborhood school – including best friends, compassionate teachers and a true sense of community — might get toppled. 

And someday soon, there might not be a fig tree from which to hang a pinata. So I think I’ll sweep up the pine needles, plan a menu and send out the invitations to one more birthday party at home.