This Arbor Day on April 24 was the first for the Town of Rochester as a Tree City USA, designated by the Arbor Day Foundation. The Town marked the occasion that morning with a tree planting at Church’s Field hosted by Town Administrator Michael McCue, who planned the event and took the steps required to make Rochester a Tree City USA.

“I actually have quite an affinity for trees and plants,” said McCue, calling himself an amateur gardener. “I really wanted the Town of Rochester to receive the designation of a Tree City USA.”

McCue, who moved from his town administrator position in the Town of Avon to Rochester, said he was surprised to find that Rochester was not yet a Tree City USA, given its natural resources. The designation, he said, would certainly be appropriate for Rochester.

“And that’s why we’re here,” said McCue to the roughly 25 people in attendance that chilly, breezy mid-morning. “Celebrating with the planting of a new tree at Church’s Field.”

McCue stood beside the young American Beech tree planted toward the rear of the field and read the official Arbor Day Proclamation the Board of Selectmen had already signed.

Maria Conners, a representative from Senator Michael Rodrigues’ office, presented the Town with an official citation from the Senate, signed by Massachusetts Senate President Stanley Rosenberg.

“Congratulations to all of you,” Conners said. “It is a great day.”

Representative William Straus also sent the Town a citation, which McCue read. Community Action Forester Molly Freilicher of the Department of Conservation and Recreation was present and offered the guests baby sugar maple trees to plant at home.

“I hope that this will make a first of such events,” McCue said.

The natural beauty of Rochester, said McCue, is one of the characteristics of Rochester that drew him from his position as the town administrator for the Town of Avon.

“And to some small degree, I hope I may be able to enhance it,” said McCue.

McCue has long been in contact with representatives of The United Nations’ “Green Legacy Hiroshima Initiative,” and has secured several saplings from a Ginko biloba tree that survived the Hiroshima bombing. McCue said the Town of Rochester will receive at least two of those saplings, and he hopes to hold a ceremony in the fall when the two trees will be planted at a site near Town Hall.

“I’m very confident, I’m very hopeful,” McCue said of the future planting of the Ginkos in Rochester. “And I look forward to this.”

By Jean Perry

It’s a chorus from nature. Birds of every type are calling out, planning liaisons, setting up housekeeping, locating food. Not all are welcome, as in the noisy messy grackles that have plagued our backyard haven these past several years. But after a long tiresome winter, one that found us covered with fresh snow for ten consecutive weeks, even the grackles can be forgiven.

I didn’t realize I had been missing the excitable blue jay until a few showed up last spring. Then it occurred to me they had been absent from the scene for some time. I am glad to see them now in all their striking squawking glory. They do remind me of my mother, however.

Ma didn’t like blue jays. They were too loud and bossy for her liking. She preferred the tiny wrens and sparrows, although personality-wise she had much more in common with the jays. She always liked the little guy, the underdogs of the world. Blue jays just didn’t fit that bill.

In his later years, and before the final curtains were drawn in on his collapsing mind, Dad would sit still for long periods simply watching the birds flutter about the feeders in my backyard. He had a couple of feeders outside his tiny kitchen also, positioned with precision where he could take in the action from his chair.

The spilled seeds in his yard hosted the mouse population that in turn hosted the feral cat population, ultimately bringing down the whole cycle of life when he started to befriend the felines. But these chapters have been told.

Until the grackle invasion, we kept a few bird feeders in the backyard. We’d observe the winged visitors from the secrecy of the kitchen window, hardly daring to breathe when some unexpected beauty would stop by for a visit. What refreshment for the soul, one needy and yearning and feeling less than spry.

When our granddaughters were tiny children, they all had turns helping Pepe fill the bird feeders. Later in the warming season, we’d set out the hummingbird feeders filled with sweet nectar and then retreat to the sunroom to await their aerial ballet.

It was nearly impossible to keep those small quivering children from scaring off the small quivering birds, but in that nanosecond before magnetic poles of energy repelled one another, the girls were filled with wonder as I watched it all play out.

The birds’ movements fascinate the dog, and he watches the sky scanning north to south across the cloudless rich blue backdrop. He and I have forgotten what a misery yesterday was with rain and snow, raw and cold. Today is a full-on gift of windless warmth and clarity. One of my long-held beliefs is that if we just hang on in rough times, the pendulum will swing the right way again. Trick is not to lose one’s grip.

For today, I’m enjoying the birds in the backyard, the sun, and the blue sky. A day like this makes one feel hopeful. I hope that soon I’ll be walking pain-free and with fluidity so as not to feel like old age is creeping up from the bottom of my feet and advancing towards my brain. I hope to hold onto this good feeling for a few days before it is replaced by who knows what. I’m reminding myself not to anticipate the future. Enjoy the now, lady. It is all you have.

I’ll spend a few more minutes remembering my parents, whose stamp on me is always and forever while I continue to balance all that was and all that was not.

I’ll think about the grandchildren and what may lay ahead for them while trusting that all their failures will be mitigated, counter-balanced by good decision making. We are wont to help them but know that the young will not be spared from anguish. They, too, must learn to take joy whenever possible for it is as fleeting as a bird.

Content now, I sit on the sidelines remembering and thinking as birdsong plays against the drumbeat of Sunday traffic outside my front door. Here in the backyard, there is harmony and understanding thanks to a chorus of birds.

By Marilou Newell

Clang, clang, clang! It’s one more day of waking up to the unmelodious clatter of train engines chugging along some tracks in Anytown, USA coming from YouTube on the computer downstairs. Every weekday in the hours before school and then after school until bedtime, there is the sound of a perpetual train running through the railroad crossing that is my house. But Diego loves it and he loves it loud. I smile. I get up for one more day.

It’s a normal day in the life of an autistic child and his mother. Okay, that child is mine and that mother is me. Having said that, “normal” in our house is limited to a setting on the dishwasher. A series of one-more-days makes up our everyday life – a Celeste pizza for Diego at every meal. There’s the morning get-ready-for-school routine and the bolus feeding of supplemental formula through Diego’s g-tube morning and night. There are the thousand unsolicited hugs and kisses. The sarcastic remarks I might make that Diego “gets” and maybe even laughs at. There’s all that repetitive perseveration of questions answered over and over with patience – a commodity around here that only living one more day after one more day can procure.

One more day sounds somewhat pessimistic, but I assure you, a pessimist I am not. In a world where every issue is divided in this dualistic reality, some areas of Autismlandia have transcended that dualism of good and bad, right and wrong, normal and abnormal, pessimist and optimist.

Rewind to one day in 2005. One more day is every day – the same day repeating on a loop. Get up and drag feet across floor toward coffee after one more night of no sleep when Diego decides that 2:00 am is party time. Then 3:00 am is playtime. And 4:00 am is screaming in unknown pain because he cannot say the words to express what hurts him. Then one more day, another day, and one more we make it through…

Fast forward to 2008. One more day is one more day that five year-old Diego will not eat enough to grow out of his three year-old clothing. One more day of sentences that ever-so-slowly progress from one word to two to three words. One more day of sleep deprivation, exhaustion, clashing with the school district over an inappropriate kindergarten placement; one more day to worry about the future, what kind of life will my child have, what kind of life will I have?

There is one more day that brings challenge, and eventually one more day brings acceptance, and, depending on what kind of person you are in general, one more day is precious. One more day is a gift.

We have lived through thousands of one more days to get to this day in 2015 when I wake up one more day to the clanking of trains and railroad crossing bells that delight that boy and drive me nuts once I’ve reached my threshold. It’s a fact – one more day can instantly turn into one more marvelous day when Diego reaches another goal or another milestone, like today when he buttoned one button on his shirt by himself in under a minute.

I cherish each and every one more day, especially that precious one more day pre-puberty, pre-middle school, pre-graduation, pre-whatever is to come later in life.

Living for one more day, although it works for us, does not guarantee that it will be a good one; but at some point every day the sun always comes out. It’s one more day I will cry, whether from sadness or overwhelming joy or gratitude. It’s one more day Diego shows me something new that he can do and I am amazed by his progress and admire him even more. It’s one more day I can dream that one day will come when he will be able to live one day on his own independently. Today, though, is one more day I cannot give up; because it’s one more day that Diego needs me to care for him, as only I know how.

There is a saying that describes what it is like for a special needs parent going one more day to one more day, with the uncertainty of those days of the future:

“The prayer of a parent of a child with special needs is that we see our child live a long, happy life … and that we live just one more day.”

Clang, clang, clang! A sigh, a smile, for it’s one more day. Thank goodness for one more day.

By Jean Perry