Word of The Day Challenge: OPTIONAL

There is a tree in my Great Aunt’s yard

that looks like it’s suffers from  a wasting rotten disease.

Sometimes,  just before Spring the limbs turn gray, they crack, they crumble they fall to

the ground

and when you pick them up, they are mushy and smell like rotten eggs.

” Gads ” we  told her one Spring, ” chop that ugly thing down ” when her tree started to get sick.

” Why should I? ” she would said ” It’s a beautiful tree most of the time. It just has bad spells. I’m not going to chop it down because every once an awhile-”

” It smells like death and looks like a rotting corpse? ” My cousin, who was the only person in the family who had the nerve to be that blunt with her.

” And then what? ” she asked.

” We plant another tree. A better tree. Maybe a Cherry tree, or how about a plum tree? Fruit trees are lovely. What  kind of tree is this anyway? Do you even know? ”  my  Cousin grilled my Aunt.

My Grandfather said, ” It’s a mongrel. That’s what I think. It’s not any particular kind of tree. Unless that is, ‘ ugly pain in the ass ‘ is a kind of tree. ”

My Great Aunt, who was my Grandfather’s older sister snapped, ” You really shouldn’t go there Bertie.”

” Mother, ” my cousin said to my Aunt Ereni, ” we can do it right now. It’s not a very big tree and I can borrow a chainsaw from Mr. Crest next door. What do you say?”

My Aunt Ereni smoothed her graying red hair, looked at us pointedly  and she said, ” If I chopped down everything in this yard that went bad on me from time to time, this yard would be pretty damn ugly and  bare. Don’t you think? ”

That tree is still in her yard and it still goes bad from time to time. But now when it goes bad no one thinks about chainsaws or Cherry trees. What we think is that the yard would look pretty ugly and bare without it.