by Matt St. Amand

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: March 01, 2009

I named the Japanese Maple tree "Roald," and thought of it as "him" even before I'd left the nursery. Growing up in Detroit, my only horticultural experience was tending a Venus Flytrap plant as a kid (which ingrained me with the belief that pieces of bologna were viable plant food). My wife and I had just built a home in a subdivision that had once been a farmer's field. Seeing all of the freshly-turned dirt surrounding our house struck a get-back-to-the-earth chord in me. In fact, I didn't even think of it as dirt, but as loam. And from that loamy earth I imagined a lush lawn rising, flowers bursting in profusion, and possibly even planting a small vegetable patch in the backyard.

"We'll live off the bounty of the earth," I said to my wife one night. She didn't look up from her laptop.

In our loamy, treeless subdivision, Roald would grow into a titan of Japanese Maples, under whose shade I would sit and read, or compose Petrarchan sonnets in a leather-bound journal; in front of whom my children would have their prom and wedding photos taken. Roald would become a landmark in the neighborhood, the town, the county. Watercolors of him would be submitted to postage stamp competitions. At some point in the future, my street would be renamed "Maple Crescent", or possibly even, "Roald Close."

Driving home with him secured and protruding from the trunk of my car, I shouted back to him: "Avanti."

He waved in the wind, as though to say, "I'll try my best!"

I planted Roald in the front yard.

". . . and Mom was upset that my sister's teacher was talking about Hell in class," I said to Roald one night. "Except Mom didn't say the word, she spelled it. My little brother looked up from the TV and said, 'Hey, you're talking about Hell.' And my folks were surprised and asked him where he'd heard the word. 'In the prayer,' he said. My parents thought about all the prayers they knew and couldn't think of one that mentioned Hell. 'Which one?' Dad asked. 'The Hell Mary,' my brother said."

I'd heard that talking to house plants had beneficial effects, so every evening when I finished watering our newly sodded lawn, I watered and chatted with Roald; telling him about my family, my high school years, how I'd met my wife. Before going in for the night, I set up a little boom box for him, so he could have some music. Unfortunately, late night rains and early morning thieves eventually put shut to that idea.

"Is it me?" I said to my wife, hysteria rising in my voice. "You can tell me! I can

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