Online Magazine Autumn/Winter 2003 It's been just over two years since the tree fell on my house. That sounds like some kind of bad Wizard of Oz joke, but it's true. On the summer solstice in 2001, the two-hundred-year-old, 150-foot-tall, eighteen-feet-around-at-the-base monstrous cottonwood tree in my backyard fell on my house and smashed it right down. I think I always knew it was going to fall. I remember waking up during rainstorms when the wind outside howled through its branches. Once, the dog was so frightened of the thunder that she dragged her round little body under my bed. The sound of her nails scratching on the hardwood floor woke me from a deep sleep. In the moments between the startle and true wakefulness, my heart beat hard in my chest - the tree was falling! Of course, it wasn't. The day the tree actually fell, the afternoon sun was shining and, since it was nearly July, there hadn't been a rain or windstorm in weeks. After two hundred or so years, the tree just leaned too far to the west - perhaps to catch some more late afternoon sunshine - and boom, over it went, taking my ninety-nine-year-old brick Queen Anne cottage with it. Luckily, no one was injured in the event, with the exception of the house and the tree. Unless, if you consider that a two-hundred-year-old tree dying does the neighborhood an injury. Heck, it probably does the world an injury. My neighbors and I have all used more water to keep our lawns green since it fell. We've missed its shade and so do the birds that lived in it. If a tree falls on your house, it definitely helps if you¹re properly insured. I was, sort of, but let me offer this: If you haven¹t reviewed your homeowner's insurance policy in a while, make a point to schedule an annual meeting with your agent. It had only been a couple of years since I looked at mine, but in that time, the property had appreciated by about $20,000. Luckily, my insurance carrier took care of me and didn't push the point. It's funny, though, when you tell some people a tree fell on your house their first reaction is subdued concern. They may have had a large branch fall on their house at one point or another and they figure that it's a drag, but no catastrophe. Other folks figure that somehow you deserved it - some piece of your life, some aspect of your belief system - something caused that tree to fall. I thought that for a while too, but what I've learned since is that sometimes trees just fall. On the whole, only those who actually stopped by and saw the mess really understood what had happened. When the dust settled, we saw that one-quarter of the house was totally destroyed; the other three-quarters were permanently askew on the foundation. Officials covered my yard in police tape and barricaded me from my house. When I was finally allowed in, I was told I had only fifteen minutes to grab the things that were most important to me. Fifteen minutes. Doesn¹t seem like a lot of time, does it? However, once I realized that everyone I loved was OK, including my cats and dog, it didn't take me fifteen seconds. I grabbed some photographs, a few pieces of jewelry, my laptop with all my writings in it...The rest of the stuff, is just-well-stuff. Replaceable. Two years later, I can say having a big tree fall onto my house might have seemed like a big deal, but it wasn't. Sure, it was inconvenient, but many, many worse things happen all the time. Just watch the news. When everything was said and done, I realized very clearly what things in my life are replaceable and what things aren't. Profound? Not for the Dalai Lama, perhaps, but certainly profound for me. It took six months and $160,000 worth of insurance money to get things back in order, but I'm back in the house. It looks almost exactly like the house I started with, only newer - much newer. My brand-new house has a ninety-nine-year-old brick façade. I'm glad people took pictures for me. At the time, I didn¹t want them, but my friends and family realized that someday I would. They understood that retelling the story would require visual aids so that the listener (or in your case, reader) could understand the impact. Ironically, I've come to realize that the photographic chronicle of the incident itself has become irreplaceable. Plus, having a big tree fall on your house makes for a fabulous story to tell after the fact. People recognize me as "Hey, aren't you so-and-so's friend who had the tree fall on her house?" And, most of the time, I tell them I am and whip out the pictures. Written and photographed by Amber McKee