Reflections on Home: The Sprucetree
The Home of the Sprucetree came into our possession by way of another suburban home bequeathed to me in 1997. The backstory to this story reveals a true redemptive story that you might aptly title: “SAVE”.
It all started with a call from my Aunt Leta’s lawyer letting us know that Leta had passed peacefully in the night and that she had named me to inherit her house. I had first met Leta when I was only ten years old. Even then at 52 years of age, she seemed to me to be ancient and the epitome of an old maid—a white-haired, woman who sat on the back-church pew with the other single matrons of the church—that is, until my rather wealthy uncle, a widower himself, took a shine to her, swept her off her feet and married her in 1964. It was a mystery to everyone, especially family, why Uncle Joe had singled her out from all the other available ladies.
Leta had had an undistinguished career as an insurance processor. She had little money to her name and few hobbies, if any. She was known only for having a saccharine fondness for cute creatures and for decorating her house with a menagerie of miniature figurines of horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, etc.
Roll the picture forward...fifteen years into a very happy marriage, my uncle died in 1979. Leta reverted to her matronly way of life but now with money. Her life became one of mystery ailments and mystery health concerns and it became filled with doctors’ and nurses’ appointments and eventually around-the-clock caregivers in her home until her death in 1997 and the subsequent call from her lawyer.
With the boon of the inherited house came the requisite cleanout of thirty-some years of stuff. The bulk of the task fell to Teri. It was two months of dedicated work of sorting and decision-making; vetting items spread over two floors and 4000 square feet to determine: keep? estate sale? Goodwill? trash?
After having conquered a whole household of stuff, an exhausted Teri walked into the last room of the basement and there in the far corner sat the very last box she needed to sort. For a moment, Teri considered just tossing it, contents and all and calling it good. But, with a sigh, she resigned herself to this last examination. Most of what was in the box was trinkets and rather trivial items and again Teri very nearly abandoned the sorting to bring the two-month effort to its close. But then, as Teri pushed aside a remaining layer of coins and miscellany of things that always make their way to the bottom of a box, Teri caught sight of a legal-sized envelope with the word “SAVE” written on it. Retrieving this last unreviewed item, Teri unsealed the envelope and out spilled some newspaper clippings from the July 30th, 1930 edition of the Fresno Bee with the headlines: "As Man Kills Wife, Self, Wounds Girl"; "Wounded Girl Recovering From Slayer's Bullet"; "Shot Victim to Recover"; "Man Who Killed Mother, Shot Her, “Crazy”, Says Girl"; "Domestic Tragedy Victims, Scene"; "Where Death Stalked Today."
Beneath the headlines, the story unfolded as a 19-year-old Leta described to the reporter how her stepfather, angered over her mother filing for divorce, broke into their California hotel room with a gun and shot her mother and then shot Leta through the base of her skull as she tried to escape, and then killed himself. Whoosh. The discovery of these articles marked “SAVE” gave new insights into who Leta was and the wound that she had carried with her for 67 years.
And so from a legal-sized envelope in the bottom of a box came a big-time message from the grave: "When you look at a person who you find difficult sometimes to understand, sometimes difficult to love—remember that there just might be buried in the bottom of a box in the far corner of the basement, an envelope marked ‘SAVE’ that will suddenly unlock a whole new understanding."
It was uncanny how this gift at death, and its accompanying redemptive message found in an envelope marked “SAVE” then led to the gift of the Sprucetree. As it turns out, the same day that we received the realtor’s recommended selling price of Leta’s home, Barbara Dalberg called and in the course of a casual conversation mentioned that the Sprucetree property was up for sale. Wouldn’t you know it? The selling price of Leta’s suburban house matched exactly the asking price for the Sprucetree property. And so the Home of the Sprucetree came by way of the Home of my Aunt Leta. And to this day, I am grateful for Aunt Leta for both her gift and her trust; these provided me a new sense of compassion and understanding as well as the means to follow the longings of my heart and fulfill the calling I had heard so long ago in the Swiss alps: “to return to the Colorado mountains.”