One of the tall old trees we lost last year was a prime display tree, the perfect reflector for the fading light of sunset. During numerous deck dinners through the years, our oldest daughter would stop the conversation, point to this particular oak, and say “look at the light on that tree.”

Its cousins might have been dark and nondescript at this point in the early evening, but this tree’s spot in the yard was perfectly calibrated for late-day light; it looked as if it was lit up from within. 

The play of light on its trunk is one of the lingering losses from that oaks’ felling last September. More than the tree itself, I miss what we saw in it. Aren’t many losses like that?