Yesterday at 5 a.m. the cats and I shot up in bed at a very loud, weird noise. You know what it's like when you live someplace: you get to know the possible sounds: icebox humming, cat knocking over a vase of flowers, car crash out on 49. When you hear an unidentifiable noise, especially a loud one, especially in your sleep, it's an adrenaline rush like bungee jumping off Half Dome. We looked around wide-eyed and waited, but the sound didn't come again. I got up and walked around the house in the dim light, but nothing seemed to be wrong: the doors were still on their hinges, no windows had broken. I checked to make sure the bathtub hadn't fallen through the floor, but it was right there on its old iron feet, unharmed.

Sheesh! I said to the cats. That was bizarre. I decided I'd go get the paper, and opened the front door. And then I just stood there. Something was very wrong. I turned on the outside light, and was still mystified. The front garden seemed to have gotten a whole lot taller — there was vegetation filling up the entire gap between my front stoop and the roof that protects it, so I couldn't even see the road. Then I noticed that the foliage was covered with little green balls and figured it out. My hundred-year-old apple tree, or part of it, was lying on its side.

When something bad happens, the first thing my mind does is conclude that I've done something wrong. As I walked out on the grass to see the long split in the branch that had dropped most of the tree onto my flower beds, I berated myself for not realizing there were so many apples this year the branch was bound to break. I should have pruned it, I should have picked half the apples, I should, I should, I should... I hate this but I always do it. And then I have to undo it. Now wait a minute, I said. This is not my fault! I'm not a farmer or an arborist; I know nothing about trees. I'm only one person, who can't take care of everything on this acre. Things happen out of the blue, and this is one of them.

But it's incredibly sad. The tree is at one corner of the living room. When I rebuilt this house I put in six windows so I could feel as though I lived in a tree house. The tree gave me shade, privacy from the road, and applesauce all winter. It housed woodpecker nests and goldfinch feeders, and lately two teen-aged deer have been coming to eat the windfall apples.

The trouble with life is that it ends. For trees, for cats, for parents and children, and some day, although it's hard to believe, for me. If I were Wendell Berry or Thich Nat Han, I'd find something profound to say here about mortality. But I'm not. I'm a woman with too much on her plate and an elephant-sized tree down in her garden. I wasn't ready for this — I'm never ready. Now I just have to get used to it. And I will. Slowly. I'll probably plant another apple tree. But in my opinion, mortality sucks.