Last night Sophie brought me a book to read before bed — The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.

I know it well, although I also knew for sure (despite the fact that we own way too many books I have trouble keeping track of) that I’d never read it to either of my girls.

“The Giving Tree” is one of those children’s books you buy before you have kids. After you have them, you realize that a story like this — about a tree that loves a boy so much she gives him her apples, her branches and finally her trunk — is too impossibly sad. Not something you can easily share with your child.

But Sophie chose it and I read it, and as I read it I thought (in that sick way we can all multitask at this point) about how it seemed more okay to read it to Sophie than to Annabelle — and not just because Annabelle’s got two years on Sophie.

Sophie loved cuddling and listening to a story, and don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of stories she does “get,” but not this one.

Will she ever?

Yes, for sure. Someday, I’m certain, she will, and we’ll read it together and cry. For me to say I’m sure she will someday get it is big. I once wrote that I strongly doubt she’ll ever “get” the book “A Wrinkle in Time.” I was chastized for that, so for now, my jury will at least remain out, if not undecided.

But “The Giving Tree,” yes. Sophie will fully understand loss. Today she doesn’t, which frankly is okay with me. Today is the one-year anniversary of Ray’s mom’s death, and I know I’m corny and always on the lookout for signs, but I did find it interesting that Sophie handed me this sad, sweet book about an apple tree on the eve of this anniversary.

Sophie doesn’t really understand why Ray had an apple tree planted in our front yard a couple months ago. Last week (coincidentally — I’m sure even he didn’t remember — it was the anniversary of the day his mother went into the hospital) he sent me a picture of the first blossom on the tree.

This morning it had several more. We haven’t said anything to the girls (yet, anyway) about the date. Annabelle misses her grandma enough; would this be rubbing it in, to say something?

For months Sophie said, “I miss Grandma” whenever she was tired. It was like a mantra, hard to know if she really knew what she was saying, even, or if it was just one of her conversation starters.

Someday, she will get it, just like she’ll get “The Giving Tree”. And I suspect that will be both a sad day, and a happy one.

As with much in life, I can never decide if “The Giving Tree” really has a happy ending or not.

You know that Bare Naked Ladies song “If I Had a Million Dollars?”

Well, if I had a million dollars, I’d spend it the way Maxine and Jonathan Marshall did. Their Marshall Fund brings smart book authors and well-versed poets to town on a regular basis. And twice a year, the butterflies come, too.

The butterfly pavilion at Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden is among my favorite places in town. Yesterday the girls and I met our dear friend Trish there — and while we didn’t have nearly enough time to enjoy everything the garden has to offer, since I screwed up and had to whisk Annabelle away to dance rehearsal — we did spend a hunk of time with some enormous monarch butterflies.

I looked at the sign in the butterfly pavilion as I always do, and silently thanked the Marshalls. And I thought about Jonathan, who died earlier this year. He was one of my earliest heroes, the owner and editor of the Scottsdale Daily Progress, my hometown newspaper. He was a liberal among conservatives, an opinionated guy. Wicked smart.

By the time I finished grad school and applied for my first newspaper job, the Marshalls had sold the Progress — after that, it was never the paper it once was, suffering multiple big owners and eventually shutting its doors, gobbled by its parent company – but I was still proud to work there. And even prouder when I was invited to join a “multi-generational” book club that included Maxine among its members. We often met at the Marshalls’ home.

Yesterday was Day of the Dead, and the garden had a big party. Fitting.

And too fitting for my taste is the news just this morning of another death. The East Valley Tribune, Phoenix’s “second” daily newspaper (the Arizona Republic is the first), is closing.

Jonathan Marshall wouldn’t be pleased about that at all.