I recently watched the heart-shaped leaves of my backyard redbud tree flutter in the stiff breeze as the last few remaining pink blossoms floated to the grass below.

For two decades I have witnessed this quiet springtime rite of passage when the tiny buds turn into beautiful flowers and eventually fall to the earth a couple of weeks later.

The only time I missed the annual ‘redbud show’ was in early 2009 while I was away from home for ten months being treated for multiple myeloma.

My wife and I moved to the Ozarks of southwest Missouri in the fall of 1994. We were drawn to the beauty of the hills and hollows of the Mark Twain National Forest, its abundant wildlife, the wide variety of trees, and the picturesque lake sitting just over the ridge.

The nicest surprise of that first spring was when hundreds of delicate purple and lavender colored flowers popped open on the redbuds. The weather was mild; the blossoms ornamented the trees for nearly a month.

The two redbuds closest to the porch looked like mirrored twins. They stood about 15 feet apart and rose nearly 30 feet into the air. Unlike most of the other trees in the yard, the redbuds’ deeply grooved trunks branched out just three feet from the ground before twisting into odd-angled, upward and outward reaching finger limbs.

Even the smallest of kids couldn’t resist the redbuds’ siren calls to ‘Climb us!’

I had noticed in early 2008 that some of the branches of the tree to the left remained bare and hadn’t flowered. Through research I discovered that the average lifespan of the Eastern Redbud was somewhere between 20 to 30 years before they typically succumbed to disease or various environmental issues.

We tried to help the ailing tree fight against pests and fungi, but it gradually showed signs of worsening health. Its twin to the right remained resilient and robust.

Little did I know as I focused on the redbud’s condition that my own health was soon to be put to the test.  By late fall of 2008, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

When spring returned in 2009, I had already been through two rounds of chemotherapy and the first of my two autologous stem cell transplants down in Arkansas.

I traveled home that April for a short break from treatment and was saddened to see that the sickly tree was getting worse. Half of the branches had no leaves.

On the morning that I had planned to venture out into the backyard to take a closer inspection, I felt pain and swelling in my left leg. A quick trip to the doctor confirmed that I had developed blood clots and pulmonary emboli in my lungs. I was hospitalized for several days, and after I was discharged, I headed back down to Arkansas to resume treatment. I didn’t have a chance to check on the trees.

As the months crawled by, I went through another stem cell transplant, two rounds of consolidation chemotherapy, and then returned home in late 2009 to begin three years of a maintenance regimen.

By 2014 the tree on the left had stopped producing leaves, buds, and blossoms altogether. It remained standing, but its demise appeared imminent.

Several months later a tremendous wind storm accompanied by torrential rains knocked down two of our huge oak trees. The first one destroyed a long section of fencing. The other one came crashing onto the roof above my daughters’ bedrooms. Thankfully no one was hurt.

While having the fallen oak trees cut up and removed, I asked that the redbud tree also be taken out. To my surprise, it was like saying goodbye to an old friend.

I wondered why in the heck those redbuds meant so much to me.

When I was in the daily battle with myeloma, taking chemo and all that comes with the fight, I rarely thought about the trees. But when I went to sleep, I often dreamed about them.

In some of the dreams, I enjoyed the flowers from the back porch as carpenter bees carried out their pollinating duties. Then there were nightmares filled with chaos (and angry bees) as I tried to help cure the diseased tree to no avail.

In one strange episode, all of the trees in the forest had become redbuds which were suffering from, oddly enough, multiple myeloma. Don’t ask me how that happened. Picture a bunch of faceless people in lab coats, slugging through the woods, frantically trying to save the trees from a bad blood cancer.

Weird, right?

It doesn’t take a genius-level dream analyst to figure out that the struggle of the redbuds was echoed in my own real life conflict.

When I got sick, everyday things became much harder and infinitely more complicated. The pain, the uncertainty, the thought of potentially leaving my family, the expense, the loss of control - the list of challenges was long and a bit frightening.

This spring I noticed that the remaining redbud tree had branches without new growth. My initial reaction was to say ‘Stop! Not again!’

I was tired of disease, tired of death. I didn’t want to lose any more redbuds or any more friends to myeloma.

Then one morning something curious happened. As I was lamenting the empty spaces on the tree, blind to the beauty which still remained, a stunning cardinal, my favorite bird, perched itself on a leafless limb. When it left, a brilliantly colored blue jay took its place. Squirrels, sparrows, robins, and even a stray cat took their turns throughout the day as if they were on a schedule.

They weren’t flowers, but they were certainly magnificent in their own right.

My takeaway?

Bad things happen, you just have to keep looking for the good. The redbud tree from the right side will pass away someday. And so will I. But until then, God willing, there will be more blossoms and many more springs ahead.