The Cherry Tree (Small Things)
Cherry blossoms carry almost a mythical significance in Japan. That special magic exists on other shores as well.
By Lisa Louis
The Cherry Tree (Small Things)
Lisa Louis
During my five and a half years living in Kyoto in my twenties, it was impossible to avoid the overwhelming Japanese cultural emphasis on cherry blossoms. Samurai poets famously wrote about the fleeting beauty of life, knowing they may be felled by a sword at any moment. Like a falling cherry petal, time on earth is glorious in its short-lived, poignant beauty.
One might roll one’s eyes at the relentlessness of Japan’s celebration of cherry blossom season, but living there and walking among the stunning varieties of cherry trees at temples, shrines, and river edges, I came to treasure their undeniable mystique.
A year before moving back to the U.S., I married my Osaka-born artist fiancé. He drew us a picture depicting our dream of having a small house one day, with a cherry tree out front. I still have that drawing decades later.
We moved to San Francisco and worked maniacally to save a down payment to buy a tiny cottage three years later. We planted a cherry tree out front. It was a thrill every time the pale pink buds of our Akebono variety cherry tree appeared. Unlike the showier, pink pom-pom blossoms of some cherry trees, our tree bloomed a little later, and offered subtle, pale pinkish white blooms that could be mistaken for apple blossoms.
We settled into our little house and came to know our neighbor in the bigger house next door. A generation ahead of us, she was of Japanese descent and had spent years of her childhood in the Japanese internment camps during World War II. She was a tough, stoic person who was kind but also stubbornly independent.
Over the years, as our neighbor got into her 80s and then 90s, I called her more frequently to see if she needed anything. She barely weighed a hundred pounds so didn’t eat that much, but I called at least twice a week to see if she needed groceries when we were going to Safeway for ours. If I stopped at our local bakery for pastries, I’d buy an extra scone for her as an excuse to check in and say hi.
Over the course of 34 years as neighbors, my regular calls were increasingly an excuse to make sure she was able to be up and about. She was not one to keep the phone handy in case of a fall, and I had to diplomatically convince her to get medical care on more than one occasion over the years. She was resilient and always bounced back, managing to live alone in her big house despite surgeries and aching joints and the need for a walker and a stair chair. She kept going, inch by inch, with determination and grit.
As our neighbor got older, so did our cherry tree. Starting from when our sons were babies, we took cherry tree photos with the boys every year when the blossoms were peaking. Our tree bloomed later than the trees in nearby Golden Gate Park, and we were always relieved to see at least a few blossoms ornamenting our front yard in delicate pale pink.
Until one year they didn’t. Too many years of drought—and perhaps damage from the pesky gophers that tunneled their way under our yard—had taken a toll on our little tree. It no longer blossomed. Then it didn’t even unfurl the few weak leaves that it had struggled to produce in the last couple of years.
“My anniversary gift to us both this year is a new cherry tree,” I announced to my husband last fall. I checked in with our local plant nursery to find that we’d have to wait until January for trees to be available.
I waited, called, and checked again to confirm we could get our new cherry tree by the end of January. It would be heartbreaking to dig out the old one, but that was part of the ceremony of replacing it.
The years took their toll on our neighbor as well. It was statistically likely that I would be the one who would find our beloved neighbor if she passed away at home, since I was the neighbor with the key who checked on her most often. I knew she did not want to live in a care facility, and she loved being at home, despite her increasing struggle to maneuver from point A to point B even with her walker.
In the last week of January, her moment came, passing quietly at home. She did not demonstrate emotions loudly in life. I had to wait until she could not protest to hold her hand and tell her I loved her through tears when I came to find her peacefully silent in bed.
It is the small things, the calls to ask if our neighbor needs groceries, that I miss.
“Just some half and half!” she’d say.
I would take her small order to her front door, confirming that she was still getting around okay on her own, until she wasn’t.
Each day a wave of missing her presence hits me. Our life keeps moving forward, though.
“The trees are in,” I said on the rainy Sunday after her passing. My husband, younger son and I went to the nursery and chose a tree to replace our old one. It was a pleasant surprise to see that they had some of the same Akebono variety of cherry tree that we had loved all these years.
“Now we have our anniversary tree,” I said.
“It can also be in memory of Helen,” my husband said quietly. Coming from a quiet, understated Japanese man, this was a heartfelt tribute to our neighbor.
The next day the tree was delivered. The ground was soft from recent rains. Between storm systems, we wrestled the old tree out of the ground, with the help of our eight-year-old neighbor on the other side of our house, making it a community effort.
Solidly in the ground, our new cherry tree is bursting with buds on its healthy, supple branches, waiting to charm us with its entrancing pale pink petals. Our little house is adorned by a beloved cherry tree again. When the petals fall this spring, I will think of our neighbor’s life well lived.
“The Cherry Tree (Small Things)” ©2025. Lisa Louis and The Renaissance Garden Guy
Readers can check out Lisa’s website HikingAutism.com to enjoy the Insights blog posts for weekly uplifting messages, look at the ever-growing list of Hikes to see the over 200 hike descriptions, and check out the photo galleries under the hikes which adds up to well over 2,000 nature photos. Lisa and her family lead other special needs families on monthly hikes in the San Francisco Bay Area in collaboration with the Autism Society, and she is currently editing the manuscript for her book Just Get to the Trailhead: An Autism Journey, which depicts her son’s transformation from being trapped at home by autism-related challenges to hiking rugged mountain trails. Readers can find Lisa at facebook.com/HikingAutism, twitter.com/HikingAutism, instagram.com/lisalouis777, and HikingAutism.bsky.social
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Thanks to all the readers who took time to read “The Cherry Tree (Small Things).” Some may be interested to hear that exactly a month from the passing of our beloved neighbor, the buds on our newly planted cherry tree started opening up. This is unusual timing for our area, perhaps because the tree had been shipped to the nursery from a different climate, maybe because the tree knew it was there in honor of our neighbor. The lovely blossoms on the new tree are featured in the photo for my HikingAutism Insights post for this week, “Pink Confetti.” https://www.hikingautism.com/insights–hike-update-news/pink-confetti
Thank you so much for these gracious words, Lisa, and for this wonderful update! Miracles, Lisa… they are real! I’m heading over to HikingAutism (hikingautism.com) for a read of your latest and a look at your bouncing baby cherry tree – thanks once again!
I so adore cherry trees. Thank you for this article today.
I do too, Annie, particularly the two in Lisa’s lovely story. She’s an amazing writer, and she’s beautifully demonstrated the parallels between their beloved blossoms, and the lives of those so important to her. Thank you so much for reading the work, Annie, and for commenting here. It’s truly appreciated.
Thank you for reading the story, Ann, and for your comment! And thanks to you, John, for the opportunity to share with your readers!
Wonder if you thought to name the tree Helen in honor of your wonderful neighbor.
Great question, Loretta! I’m curious about the same thing! Oh, Lisa… ?
That’s a great question, Loretta! We certainly are thinking of this tree as being in honor of Helen. I am planning to invite a close circle of neighbors who loved her to share a cup of tea and a few words around the tree as our own little memorial to her. Thank you for reading the story!
A very beautiful, heartfelt story.
Thank you so much for sharing 🌸🙏
I agree, Roxxy. Lisa’s and remarkable writer, and this story is so powerful and so poignant. It’s an absolute gem of a work, and I’m proud and honored to feature it here. Thank you so much for reading it, Roxxy, and thank you for leaving your lovely and kind thoughts here.
Thank you so much for reading the story, Roxxy, and for leaving this comment!
A beautiful story reminding readers of just how precious life is.
Truly, Kevin. It’s an absolutely lovely work. Thank you so much for reading it and for commenting here.
Thank you so much for reading the story, Kevin!
Wonderful heartfelt story. Thanks for sharing this piece with your devoted readers.
I definitely agree, Rick. In fact, as I’d mentioned to Lisa in the few days following her submission of the piece, I read and re-read this lovely essay several times. Its brevity belies its power and resonance. It’s one of the most poignant, touching pieces I’ve read in a very long time. It’s definitely an honor to have a writer of Lisa’s caliber on board as a regular contributor to The RGG. Her work is amazing, and personally, I think she lends some serious class to the place! Thanks so much for reading this wonderful work, Rick, and thank you for commenting. It’s truly appreciated.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute, John. Thank you!
I’m the one who’s grateful, Lisa. It’s such an honor to feature your beautiful work here. “The Cherry Tree (Small Things)” is so lovely and so incredibly poignant… readers will now always remember your dear neighbor and the significance of the cherry blossoms. Thanks once again, Lisa.
Thank you for reading the story, Rick!