A Tree Falling

This summer will bring a swingset to our backyard. Our children welcome the idea of the swings, rockwall, slide, and sandbox--an imposing wooden structure eclipsing the small yard...eclipsing everything. To place it we have to take down two trees older than I am--one diseased, the other a stately elm. Both trees were planted from seedlings in a paper cup (according to family legend)--by my dead brother's kindergarten hand. It is breaking me. Every morning, I get my mug of Chai and stand before the sliding glass door, staring at the trees. One is pruned back ruthlessly already, in preparation. The other has been blighted the past few years, unable to flower or send out but a handful of misshapen leaves. I know they must come down. But, the one held our rope swing when I was a child--spinning myself dizzy and running up the hill, the whole world tilting on its axis around me--ground above, earth below...and I would laugh at the sudden uncertainty about the spaces of the world.
I am in mourning over these trees...I want to wear black, beat my breast, and wail. I will cause their death--I have agreed to the necessity of their murder. I understand it, but still feel the brokenness. Brian's trees are coming down...I will facilitate their death the way I (as a young girl) once feared I did his. Maybe he teased me too much one day...maybe he wouldn't drive me to the mall...maybe he said I was a bean-pole, and in my anger, I wielded some vague "karmic" axe, and he was gone. Survivors always feel the blood on their hands--the two remaining trees we have decided to spare will witness their brothers' falling with guilty, sticky limbs, like mine...