I was filled with wonder when I looked into the shoe box of pine trees that Mother held in her hands. They were the tiniest pines I’d ever seen, a whole miniature forest.

The yard of the new house was broad and deep. To one side of the backyard stood four pecan trees. The only other tree was a very old oak in the backyard. Thick wisteria vines hung from its branches, their blossoms lush and abundant. Except for the pecan trees and the old oak, the yard spread its two acres flat and blank without a single tree to catch the sunlight or create patches of welcome shade.

I was just four years old when Mother planted other trees—the maple near the front porch, the mimosa with its pink puffs and tiny leaves that folded together at evening like praying hands, Japanese magnolias, dogwood trees along the sidewalk, and a crabapple and pear tree out back. Though I watched her plant many of the trees, no experience of planting trees in the yard held the wonder of planting the shoe box forest of pines.

Mother set the shoe box down on the grass and beside it dug a hole with her spade, chopping and chopping until the dirt was loose and soft enough to receive the tender roots that she pushed into it. Then she patted the dirt around the little tree with her hands and watered the earth with drizzle from the hose that she dragged around from where it lay coiled like a great green snake under the faucet.

The tree looked small and vulnerable there in the grass, and once planted didn’t look like a tree at all, only a small sprig of pine on the lawn. “Are you sure this is going to grow into a real tree?” I asked.

“It will grow into a tree as tall as the house and taller,” Mother assured me. Then she carried the box to another spot, dug a hole and planted another tree. She repeated the process all over the front and long side yards while I dragged the drizzling hose and its long extensions along with her. The shoe box forest diminished as the sprigs of pine stood scattered on the lawn on their twig trunks.

I couldn’t imagine the long-leafed pines they would grow into, tall and glorious, yielding enormous pine cones that were used to start the Christmas fires in the living room fireplace, or how many pine needles would be shed each year to be raked into the driveway to make it a carpet of golden brown. I don’t remember now being aware of the growth of the trees, when they changed from looking like twigs and began to look like trees, when I began to look up and not down at them. I don’t remember when I looked out at the yard and realized that we lived in a grove of pines. What I do remember is that walking around the yard with Mother, watching her plant the trees, taking them one by one from the shoe box forest was one of the happiest, most thrilling experiences of my childhood.

The needles still tremble in a fall downpour of rain, still flash and sparkle in a summer breeze. Sunlight forever shimmers on the long pine needles in my memory.