After James Bruce's death in September, his sister, Debbie and her husband Mike decided that they would like to use about a quarter acre
of their property to establish a memorial grove in memory of
James Bruce. James Bruce, his sons, Ryan and Jared, and his wife,
Colleen, had been raising bonsai trees and they had planted a number of
redwood and pine trees and had also tended to some trees which had been
planted by his Uncle Neville before his death in 1993. It was
decided that 37 of these trees would be selected and planted on the quarter
acre at Debbie and Mike's by those family members who wanted to participate.
On a bright, sunshiny day after Christmas, everyone gathered at the recreation
room in the mobile home park and then drove to Debbie and Mike's and planted
trees.
The day was beautiful, white clouds in a blue sky, the weather was mild. The kind of day that James Bruce would have loved. The activity was comforting to all of us who took part. The trees we planted will grow into a beautiful grove of redwoods. We can add to it each year and we plan to have a picnic area. All we need now is a huge rock in the center for James Bruce to climb. I can hear him say "Cool!" as he looks down and sees the grove we have dedicated to him with love and affection.
Debbie, Laura and Eric plant some of the redwood and pine trees which James Bruce had grown from seed.
As we planted the trees, the following verse which we found in many of the Compassionate Friends memorials, was fresh in our minds:
'Tis said memories are golden
and maybe that is true,
But we never wanted memories,
we only wanted you.
Debbi and Vivian work at planting trees
during the afternoon.
There was plenty to do in planting all the trees to keep everyone busy for several hours.
Laura and Kristen man the shovels!
Brother and sisters work together to dig and plant.
All Done At Last!
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