Homage to an old hackberry: perspectives on the life and death of a venerable backyard friend.

The predicted ice storm did not quite materialize. A thin coating covered the trees, fences, and front steps' but the roads and schools were open. I was trying to get a little work done when the drama began.

When a tree is about to fall on your house, the first warning is a series of loud pops, followed by the deep cracking of layer upon layer of heartwood. This goes on for about five seconds-about the time it takes to run to the back of the house, feel the vibration of the massive split, and run back in the other direction. Then comes the crunch of a million ice-laden twigs, and finally a heavy schwomp as the tree bounces on the roof.

The morning's tree catastrophe was not a complete surprise. The local old hackberries are notorious for their propensity to fall apart in huge chunks, and we knew that one of our tree's codominant trunks was balanced in our direction, a little too close for comfort.

By the time my husband drove home from work, counted the puncture wounds in the roof, and decided that only an idiot would climb on that icy roof with a chainsaw, we had a good idea of exactly what had happened.

Lodged between the twin trunks was a hidden cavity that had filled with ice. This structural defect (combined with north winds strong enough to do some serious twisting) caused the hackberry to drop its weaker half, which came to rest atop our kitchen.

Several times before, we had talked about severely pruning the grand old tree rather than waiting for nature to take it's course. But we were too involved with the hackberry to remove its most graceful and statuesque limbs. On hot summer mornings we rarely used our air conditioner since those low limbs shaded the east half of the house. Through five winters, we had collected fallen branches and used them as kindling in the woodstove. And we frittered away many leisure hours watching the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks that called the hackberry their home. Indeed, my only complaint with the old tree occurred every time baby birds fell from their nests and the parents depressed me with their frantic chirping.

All things considered, we simply did not have the heart to cut it down-not even half of it.

After nature intervened and pruned the tree herself, several busy weekends passed before the hackberry assumed a new role. Instead of a natural cooling device that doubled as wildlife habitat, we had a cord of wood, a collection of primitive lawn furniture, and a backyard capable of growing grass.

We would have liked the tree to wait another 20 years or so before it fell apart, but we don't regret our passive decision to leave our backyard friend alone. The man across the road, who worked as a woodcutter in the hills of eastern Tennessee for most of his adult life, says the tree was more than 70 years old. According to the biological clock of a lowland hackberry, that's old but not quite geriatric, and certainly worthy of human awe and respect. I think we naturally tend to respect things that are very old and irreplaceable.

Coping with the fallout from our old hackberry has changed the way we think of the other old trees that we loosely regard as "ours." For example, an old ash across the yard has a nasty cavity in its main trunk. The tree has been deteriorating slowly for years, and periodically we discuss the possibility of removing it. But the old ash is not really a hazard, not now that most of its big limbs have rotted and dropped. Instead, it is a virtual hub of critter activity. As collected rainwater seeps out through insect and woodpecker holes, honeybees and other flying insects gather to savor the tree's tea. Numerous woodpeckers and brown creepers fly in from the woods to pilfer the tree's rich supply of living food.

The more we learn about the ash's slow, almost ritualistic death, the less inclined we feel to do anything about it. The tree is old. It is dying with dignity. And in the process it is feeding the world that fed and nurtured it for more than half a century. We find this situation much more interesting than a moss-covered stump.

Despite the great physical strength of trees-and the complex defensive tricks they employ to survive to a ripe old age in one place-it is a fact of life that all trees must someday die. This can feel like a fortunate fact when the trees were planted for the sole purpose of harvesting them, but elderly domestic trees call for a different approach and a different level of understanding. The old hackberry that smashed onto our roof did not teach us to fear our old trees. Instead, we learned a deeper respect for the slow cycle of life and death, one that adds to the mystery of the most intricate plants we know.