The Stump ...

Sharing this may make me seem insane ... but it's part of who I am now ... I tell the truth ... I bare my soul ... and I take no prisoners.  For those of you who have had the pleasure of picking out a Christmas tree with me ... know that I am picky.  It usually take a good hour ... in the cold ... and I revisit the same ones over and over.  For the last 19 years I have driven those closest to me crazy.  My sister Lisa offered to help me this year and she confessed later that she told her boss she was praying for patience.  Last night we went and there were hundreds of trees before me and I took the third one I looked at ... 3 minutes and I had my tree.  I dragged it up to have the end cut off ... and like a punch in the gut it struck me ... the stump.  On December 21st I will be married 20 years or I should say would have been married ... technically ... legally ... I'll still be married.  Because we got married right before Christmas and I used to be an old softy ... when that first stump was cut off ... I grabbed it and saved it. 

Every year after I saved the stump and put the year on it.  The plan was to burn them on our 10th anniversary ... but when that date came I couldn't do it ... "so we'll do it on our 20th I said".  

The guy hoisted the tree up and said "how much should I cut off" I told him 4 inches ... he took the chain saw and cut ... I watched the stump drop ... and I left it there ... and didn't look back.

This morning I took the stumps from 1991 to 2010 and put them in a large basket.  I can't burn them but I don't need them anymore.  Then I remembered that scene from my favorite movie Harold and Maude ... Harold and Maude are sitting on a dock and Harold gives Maude something and she tells him how much she loves it and then throws it in the water and says "now I'll always know where it is."  I decided to throw them into the woods behind my house.

There is joy and pain in the last 19 years and I can't forget them by burning them ... but they are behind me now ... not with me ... 

Now I will always know where they are ...