Masks in place and with help from friends and neighbors Ed and Carol, on Tuesday Rebecca and I planted several River birch trees just outside the back door of our Decorah home. Later that day in a Zoom happy hour with Mike and Maggie – after five if you really must know – Master Gardener Mike explained that for every inch diameter of a new trunk, it takes a sapling one year to root in its new soil, preparing it to grow upwards.

It will take our trees around twenty years to look like this tree. Will we both live to see our trees in full growth? Planting a tree in the fall – I am thinking of Clarinda’s fall as it tends to be longer than Decorah’s – of one’s life encourages a bit of reflection on topics too easily ignored unless prompted by a reminder of natural life and death growth patterns, outside one’s back door.

The birch mortality trees and a book tape story with a sudden death we listened to on the way from Decorah to Clarinda, prompted us yesterday to walk through a Clarinda cemetery and talk about where we wanted to finish-up this earth time journey. We have had this conversation many times before and so coming up with a plan was really not so difficult. Details will be worked out in due time but for now we like cremation, tombstones in Clarinda and Decorah, with remains divided as well.

Our partnership has always involved conversations about important matters. In a Place of My Own Rebecca told you about how our “we” is strengthened by the time we give to our “I’s.” For me, it is not so much place but time, as I carve out 4am – 7am every morning wherever we are.

In thinking about our personal and partner end-times, we want to leave a tangible reminder in both our communities of who we were, as persons and as partners.