April was a month of goodbyes at my house. Everyone already knows I lost my twenty-some year old tree. The yard just doesn’t look the same without it. It’s depressing out front. Strangely enough my next door neighbor (the nice one on the other side) told me how great the yard looks without the tree.  Why don’t people like trees? I don’t get it. I thought people were all buzzed about the environment these days. Aren’t trees part of that? Everyone I live near hates trees. They hate the leaves, and they hate the birds and the squirrels that trees attract. Maybe I’m just unfortunate enough to live in a neighborhood of old farts who worry more about their perfect grass than they do about the wildlife.

My tree really had changed for the worst. I looked back through photos, and just five years ago it had a trunk, and it had a defined space that it stuck to. Sometime over those five years, it split down the middle and the trunks were more or less laying on the ground, one side reaching for the street and the other side banging up against my house and destroying my gutters in the process. So my tree had to go. It still hurts that it is gone. It still hurts to see the pile of wood shavings. I’ve smoothed most of it out and spread much of it around in the gardens as mulch. That’s the best I can do. If the neighbors don’t like how it looks, I suggest they look the other way. I’m done with caring.

A week ago there was another sad goodbye. I started out in 2007 with a one year old 2006 maroon Ford Fusion. The Ford Fusion was new to the world at that time. It was sharp and it was different. No one else had that design. It was innovative and it was fun. I drove it for six years and put 40,000 miles on it. When hubby’s SUV died, we liked the Fusion so much we bought my current car, a 2012 Fusion. The 2006 went to my husband, and he put another 60,000 miles on it.

It still had life in it, but it was starting to nickel and dime us. It had at least a couple of thousand dollars worth of repairs coming up. The air conditioning quit years ago, the door latch was broken (you had to roll the window down and open the door from the outside to get out of the driver’s seat), the transmission was going, and the front end was making noises. So with 132,000 miles on it, we traded it in last weekend. I cried. Yes, I cry over cars (and over trees). It was like saying goodbye to an old friend, and I still didn’t have my 2012 Fusion back from the repair shop yet. I felt bereft.

Hubby had always wanted a small pickup truck. He mentioned a Ford Ranger, in particular. I went online, looking, just for the heck of it. I found a 2010 Ranger with only 38,000 miles on it. We believe some older man had it and used it to tow a small camper in the summer, and that’s all he used it for. It’s pristine, and it drives like a brand new car. It has less miles on it that my 2012 Fusion does.

So on Saturday, a new Ford appeared in our driveway.

Then on Monday, a repaired and beautiful Ford came back home, too.

We are a two Ford family again. I miss the old guy, my 2006, but my hubby loves his “new” truck. My car looks like she’s new again. I was so excited to get her back.

Things are looking up around here, and April with its sad goodbyes is just a memory now.