life cycles

The part of my resume which outlines past work experience includes two summers of tree planting in Northern British Columbia. The first time was in 1987 between years two and three at Briercrest. The second was after graduation in 1989.

Mostly, I did not enjoy my time planting trees. There are a few good memories that I have kept with me, but I did it purely for the money. The goal was to make at least $200.00 per day, which meant you had to plant about 2000 trees every day. There were a few start-up costs like buying planting bags for about $150.00, boots for about $200.00, and a shovel for $45.00. There were also daily camp costs of $25.00 which gave you as much food as one could possibly want, and a hot shower if one had enough energy to strip after eating dinner and before falling into bed.

I recently decided, while cleaning up and organizing the garage, that the bags and the boots finally had to go. That part of my life is over.

While tree planting you learn all sorts of interesting trivia which will likely never be used. Like that it takes about 65 years for a planted tree to grow into an adult tree ready to be harvested again. And also that the trees we planted had about an 85% chance of survival, which I thought was fairly good considering the various things which could hinder the growth of a forest.

Whenever it comes time for me to do a building project using wood, I think of all those thousands of trees I planted so long ago. They are a little under a third of the way through their growing time before they will show their rings again. I sometimes feel like thanking the trees for giving their lives so that we can use their lives to improve our own. My workmate Mar Cadiz from the Westin Hotel would always have this attitude when we would cut roses to put on all of the room service trays. He would apologize to each one and thank them for giving their lives for man's decadence.

One of the more recent building projects I was involved in was building a wheelchair ramp at Ken and Kate's home. Ken needed it for easier transfer during his frequent home visits between times of cancer treatment. I did not feel that the wood was being used in a decadent way for this project. A sacrifice of one for the life of another. After Ken died, there was no longer a need for the ramp, so we took it down and away.

I couldn't bear to see the loss of life compounded by the waste of good wood, so I sent Kate an email telling her of some of the things I thought would be a good use of the wood. She kindly replied saying thank you, but that she would rather not have anything to do with it as the ramp was a symbol of pain and sickness for her. I fully understood. But I had a burning need to do something meaningful with all of that precious lumber. I wanted to make a new beautiful symbol out of a bad one. This brought me to thinking about what Ken's life represented. There were many words which came to mind like family, friendship, community, hope, justice, freedom, being real. Ken brought people together, and so I tried to think of a symbol that also brings people together. An image of two people sitting on a bench came to mind. So I quickly set to making benches, as many as the ramp wood would allow. 13 perfect people connectors.
After seeing the first one finished at a party at Carol's house, Kate said that she did indeed want one. That put a smile on my face, but what I really wanted to do was cry. I'm not sure why.

Each family member will receive one, and the rest will be given to Ken and Kate's friends who would appreciate a thoughtful symbol of a friend now gone.
Mine will take an honourable spot next to another proud use of a tree's sacrifice.