A Buckeye In Need Finds A Friend, Indeed

I planted the sapling with little ceremony but much love. I watered and fertilized it under the supervision of the family arborist — my wife, Lisa — and directed our children not to play around it. It is a special tree, I told them — a buckeye. Despite the care and warnings given, the tree barely survived its first year. Somehow, the leader — the branch that the next year would become the trunk — had broken off. The sole clue to the damage: a blue and
yellow ball lying next to the branch. The kids said they hadn’t seen the ball before. Everyone knows how resilient a buckeye is, though. And so, with at least a bit of hope, I spent a long, gray Columbus winter praying that the little tree would survive.

When the redbud blossoms finally broke winter’s grip, I realized that the little tree had sprouted a new leader. It had lost a year’s growth in height but otherwise seemed to be flourishing. (I secretly told myself that