Yes, Eleanor, she was a Presence – our enormous 400+ year old oak tree – a gift, a living point of reference for us in all seasons. She was the first thing I looked for upon arriving home from work, from cross-country skiing, from riding, from tracking my dogs. I have always loved Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.”
“Our” oak tree was a present, the first thing we were drawn to when searching for a quiet piece of land to buy and build our home on 25 years ago. We had to walk the property line to make sure the tree was within bounds of the tract that was for sale. We were thrilled that she was included and that fact more or less drove our purchase decision. She became a permanent monument for the center of our lives and for countless birds. Yearly 
Humming birds, after visiting our feeders, would head toward the oak and their secret nests. They knew about her location and returned, generation after generation.
In late December, Great Horned Owls did their mating hoots from the tallest perch in the field, the bare oak.
Ice storms brought down some of her limbs that amazed us with their crushing size. High winds sometimes scared us, wondering how much could she withstand. She had been practicing since the time of the Mayflower landing in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, four centuries ago.
I grew up noticing favorite trees: a giant weeping willow in the back center of our yard – a tree to count hide-and-seek games from, a messy tree full of drips and bugs. When we moved out of the city, I ran back and said good-bye to that one and went on with my life and never knew when she ceased to be.
In Houston we had a tall backyard jack pine that I learned to install spotlights in clinging to her narrow top while being coached by my husband far down on the ground. She, too, was ragged, huge and stayed important in our lives until we moved on.
We love trees and have planted over 500 – mostly evergreens. We marvel repeatedly at their growth through the years.
The oak was the best – the biggest, oldest and tallest of them all. Encircling her base required five adults with hands joined. She wasn’t the largest; I remember the awesome tree in the woods about 30 miles north, that was sacrificed to become a Sams Club parking lot. That one required seven adults to encircle her. I’d be worried if I was the soul that was responsible for her demise.
I used to walk over and touch “our” oak’s trunk hoping to receive some fragment of her years of knowledge, but it never happened; no secrets were released. Professional arborists write that oaks seldom die of old age and in spite of the availability of a cell tower a few hundred yards away, lightening brought her crashing down. The horses left their shelter and ran to the other end of their pasture and I should have gone out and looked around in the storm. I didn’t know until my husband arrived home, went out on the deck and cried out in horror at the sight. Now we know how tall she was. Bird distress sounds endlessly filled the evening and I think my compass has been broken.
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