I was about 10 or 11, sitting at the kitchen table gulping back hot, painful tears that stuck in my throat like bones, embarrassed, there in front of my mom.

A crew was tearing down a huge old oak tree in a vacant lot behind our house, one of the few left in the small but once woodsy West Michigan suburb we lived in. The oak tree was like an old neighbor of mine, like Mrs. LeFevre or Mr. Apple on Oakmere, the street this lot was on. Oakmere. Some slap in the face, tearing down a namesake tree.

I lived on Oakmere Drive the first two years of my life, next door to the lot. The lot they were wrecking to put up another lame 1970’s style house. That lot was our playground. Trees above, dirt below; what more did you need?

But housing takes precedent. Someone owned the lot and wanted to make money. They sold it. Trees get torn down. I get it. It’s just that I — we — lost something. Something bigger and more powerful and older than any person I knew. A living thing that was there before the white men, even. What kind of spirit did this tree have? Were the druids on to something with their wood nymphs? There’s life force in a tree, after all. Is that spirit? Why not? I vote yes.

And it killed me that day to see that tree coming down, that day I sat in our kitchen, crying. For years I could see it out of the back doors (double Dutch, plenty of windows) as I sat at my place at our kitchen table. It was there with me before I could even remember, in that lot. And the bastards killed it. (Come to think of it, chainsaws were the first thing I remember absolutely hating as a kid. They freaked me the hell OUT.)

I know, I know. “It’s just a tree.” But my ancestors worshipped trees, and honored them if they had to cut them down for fuel or shelter. We don’t honor much anymore. At least not much that has to do with nature, which like it or not, we’re part of. So, in essence, we don’t honor ourselves anymore, or a huge part of ourselves, anyway. It’s no wonder we’re so messed up. Depression, spiritual bankruptcy, heart disease, materialism, compulsive consumption, never-ending war, massive debt, a world of poison. No wonder we’re so messed up.

I miss the oak trees, the old, wild ones that grew out of the earth where an acorn happened to root. Oaks are divine. I’m with my ancient Celtic ancestors on this point. And the Lorax, too. I loved that guy.