You’ve heard of The Giving Tree. We had a special tree too, only ours didn’t hand out apples. It handed out target practice and the occasional splinter. We called it The Shooting Tree.
It stood alone in a little field out back, just past the garden and before the woods swallowed up the horizon. A quiet giant, perfectly placed, a lone sentinel with nothing but deep forest behind it. Over the years, it became our unofficial shooting range. Targets were stapled to its broad trunk, one after another, year after year. And that tree? It stood still and took every shot without flinching.
I couldn’t tell you how many rounds it absorbed—thousands, easily. By the end, there was probably more lead than wood in its core. But it wasn’t just a tree full of bullet holes—it was a classroom, a proving ground, and a kind of family altar. Kids learned how to aim there, standing shoulder to shoulder with a parent or grandparent. Big, steady hands covered small, nervous ones. Tiny fingers curled around triggers for the first time, ears muffed, hearts pounding, eyes shining with both fear and pride. And their grandfather’s voice—calm, patient, steady—wrapped around them like the safest place in the world: “Easy now. Line it up. Breathe. Squeeze.”
It was where grown-ups went too, after long days of work, to find rhythm in the simple cadence of recoil and release. Where laughter echoed when a target flapped in the breeze and someone missed wide. Where silence settled in when life got heavy, and the sharp crack of a shot carried farther than words ever could.
That tree bore witness to all of it—quiet lessons, loud frustrations, the joy of a perfect bullseye, the disappointment of a wild miss, and the triumph of a child’s grin when they finally hit the paper. Layer by layer, year after year, it held our family history in its bark. It wasn’t fancy. But it was ours.
Then, one day, a windstorm came through. Nothing serious—just a blustery reminder that nature still calls the shots. And when it passed, the field wasn’t the same. That tree, the one that had stood through more winters than some of our cars, was down. Just one tree toppled. That one. The Shooting Tree.
And here’s the part that stopped me cold: it didn’t just fall. It snapped clean through, right where the target had always been pinned. The same spot we all aimed for, the place that carried every lesson, every laugh, every careful shot—it finally broke right there. Like it had been holding that weight for decades, and in the end, it let go exactly where we had asked the most of it.
I guess even the strongest among us wear down eventually—years of weather, wear, and lead quietly eating away at the core. Maybe it didn’t fall from the wind so much as from a deep exhale after a job well done. Like it knew it had given us everything it had to give.
Now it lies in the field, stripped of duty but not of meaning. I stood there longer than I’d like to admit, just looking at it. Remembering the echoes of shots long past that still seemed to hang in the air somehow—the laughter of children, the calm guidance of their grandfather, the sound of three generations woven together in powder and bark. That tree wasn’t just wood. It was part of our story.
We’ll find another place to shoot, sure. Maybe even plant a new tree nearby someday. But there won’t ever be another like it. That old pine gave us more than a place to aim—it gave us memories worth holding onto.
Rest easy, old friend. You stood your ground. You did us proud.
And though the tree is gone, the echoes still carry—laughter, lessons, and the steady rhythm of generations finding their mark.
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