Iowans love their trees, and in Autumn you can see why. Suddenly, every street is a Klimt painting, with glowing golden, amber, chartreuse and scarlet leaves trembling on slender branches, getting ready to let go and fall to earth.

Last week, I planted (with the help of a big strong man) a crab-apple tree in my front yard. Awash with plump red berries, it’s in front of the house to the right of the front door. I can see it from where I sit on the couch beside the fire, looking out the window, there she is. Torrey’s tree.

I dashed home from work when I learned the digging had begun, arriving just in time. As Denny filled the bucket with water, I carried out a quarter cup of my husband’s ashes to the edge of the hole in the earth. On my knees, I scattered the bits of bone in a perfect circle, ready to receive the roots.

I went inside to get my camera, returning to the front door to see that the tree was in place. Staked on the sides, trunk circled with a white plastic tube, a metal cage around it as well, it is protected for the coming months as it goes into dormancy. Then, in Spring, it will burst into white blossoms.

Love and Death. How close they are, intense, mysterious, inevitable. To die for love is the romantic’s dream come true. Death makes life and love sweeter. The fact that life ends gives us purpose, and the drive to grow our souls. Love, I now know, is sacrifice: joyous, willing sacrifice. Sacrifice that is an honor, a privilege, a gift of grace.

Human cremains have a strange, powerful energy. Whether they sit quietly in a cardboard box in a closet for decades, rest in an expensive urn on a mantel, are scattered to the winds or tossed into the sea, they are more than just a symbol of a soul. They are, in a very real way, the last of an individual’s physical essence in this world.

And now, back to trees. The Wedding Tree is a California scrub oak perched above a canyon, one of the many mini-ridges of land in Big Sur, stretching like a finger down towards the highway, the cliffs, and the waves.

A picture-perfect place for rustic and romantic weddings, we hosted several unforgettable nuptials beneath this oak. One involved the bride arriving on a bejeweled white horse. For another, we placed rows of hay bales for seating down the hillside and the tree was decorated in tiny bells and colorful streamers. All of these celebrations involved toasts, pledges, and heartfelt poetry.

It was on this mountain that Torrey and I said our private wedding vows one brisk and glorious Winter afternoon. It was a spontaneous, flirtation-turned-serious moment. In an instant, our guardian angels took charge and we began the next chapter of our great adventure.

“With this orange I thee wed.” I said, feeding him a section of mandarin orange from the citrus tree beside my bedroom door. He took the orange tenderly from my hand, peeled off another section and fed me a small piece of the delicious, tangy fruit.

“With this orange I thee wed,” he said.

Then, Torrey lifted up the orange to the heavens and said,

“With this orange, we are wed.”

Next, we looked out over the shining blue ocean and sighed together, a nice big exhale. The simplest possible wedding ceremony, and all of it just for us.

A wind line from Pfeiffer point several miles to the north divided the calm ocean waters from the darker, wilder open sea.  

On another afternoon we stood watching the sunset beneath this same scrub oak. The neighbor’s giant white Turkish sheepdog appeared at our side. Kash was a mystical creature, intuitive, protective and playful.

“These big dogs are so special, “Torrey said, and I replied,

“Yes, but they don’t live as long as the little ones.”

His eyes twinkled and his smile was wise and kind.

“Well, darlin’, we can’t have everything we want in this life, that’s not why we’re here.”

We laughed, but today I understand this moment better. When we are blessed with a great love later in life, we can’t expect it to last for decades.

Last August I made a return pilgrimage to the Wedding Tree. Alone, I buried a small amount of Torrey’s bones in the earth beneath the oak. The day was gray and overcast, the ocean invisible. The little tree had grown a size or two larger, and was garlanded with heavy ropes of Spanish moss, that brushed the grasses beneath it. The light all around was muted and soft. The land was quiet as I whispered my prayers to the earth and sky.

I placed the fine white powder into a depression in the soil, covered it with a round river stone I’d found, then brushed handfuls of oak leaves onto the tiny sacred site. The wind blew, I looked north into the fog, and wept.

Love and Death, entwined on a magical tree above the sea.