“When COVID-19 locked down my community it also cancelled the memorial service that my husband’s daughters and I had so lovingly planned for their father, my husband. Rather than celebrate Jack’s life surrounded by family and friends at the Ladybird Wildflower Center, we grieved in isolation. Then, I received a remarkable gift in the mail. Friends has purchased three trees to be planted in Jack’s name via treesforachange.com. How he would have loved that! I went to explore the website and discovered that I could plant a small grove in his name. In the future, instead of looking down at a tombstone he didn’t want, we could pick up a fallen cone, gaze up at the sky through the rough bark branches covered with needles of every shade of green or just close our eyes and smell the scent of the diverse conifers that we had helped bring to life: Ponderosa, Jeffery and sugar pine, Douglas fir, and incense cedar. I purchased enough trees to create a small grove and shared the Jack Tucker Memorial Grove on social media. The grove soon grew to one acre… then two. As I write the review, those who loved Jack have planted 378 trees in his grove. Because Jack’s only sister died 10 months before him, I recently decided to purchase a memorial grove for her as well. Now when I visit Jack’s memory in a national forest, I can also remember his sister and know that they are back together in the spirit of nature. I know that in a few days, after we close the memorial and the trees are planted, I will receive a copy of the notes that his friends and family wrote as they added a tree to Jack’s grove. Those words will be another, loving gift. Remembering my husband in this way has been a profound, healing process for all of us. I highly recommend creating a memorial grove for the loved ones who have left us behind.”
“This was such an easy and thoughtful way to pay tribute to my friends parent who recently passed just 17 days apart. This grove will be a growing and loving tribute to them!”
“Trees for a Change is an ecologically sound way to honor or memorialize a loved one. I am grateful for this program. May it and our environment flourish!”
