It's a birthday tree

When I was a child and went to visit my grandparents one of the things we would do around this time of year was go out and cut a birthday tree for my mother and I. My grandmother died when I was 8 and my grandfather died a year later when I was 9. Although the house my grandfather built was still in the family, there wasn't the same tie that brought us all together at that house in North New Portland.
Today Eric and I took the kids up there for the first time. We went up Millay Hill Road, where generations of my mother's family lived, back then without electricity or plumbing. In recent years electricity has been brought part way up the hill but there is still this vast forest up that hill that is relatively untouched and primitive. My cousin and his wife live up there, a hefty walk into the woods with solar panels providing electricity and hot water. My grandparents house is at the bottom of the hill, currently owned by another cousin and occupied only a few times a year. Across the field is a farm house where my great grandmother lived when I was very young.
It was hard to imagine that I had never brought my children there before. Tradition is very important to me and I try to pass on as much to my children as I can. Even though 25 years have passed since my grandparents were alive, the land and house still hold vivid memories for me. It was a long drive, 2 hours each way, to get a birthday tree. But the tree is special, because it came from Millay Hill Road in North New Portland, one of the most special places on earth. It's been over 25 years since I have had one of these.