A/N: A look back at the twenty-fifth anniversary of a milestone in the comic "For Better or For Worse".

Family Tree

"Thanks for coming with me," Elizabeth Caine told her younger sister April Patterson. Almost ten years apart in age, the two sisters didn't look much alike. Elizabeth was taller and her blond hair was cropped short; her glasses made her the perfect picture of the stereotypical teacher which just happened to be her chosen profession. Her younger sister had dark tresses pulled back in a ponytail; at twenty-nine she still looked too young to be working with horses in the Calgary area.

But this wasn't Calgary or even a school campus - the two were driving in a car toward a special place not far from the house they grew up in, part of the Canadian town of Milborough. The weather had been unseasonably warm, and the forecast for April 18, 2020 had been for a slight chance of rain; but whatever precipitation was waiting to fall was hiding out on the horizon.

"I wanted to come, Liz. It's been so long since I've been there; I think an anniversary plaque is perfect - and it's been exactly twenty-five years today." April grinned. "I won't tell the conservation authorities if you don't."

"Michael said it's a small plaque, and we'll be sure to keep it out of the way. It's not like we're putting up a sign in the middle of the ground for someone to trip over. It was good of him to get it made." Their older brother lived within walking distance in the old family home, but he had taken his wife Deanna and the kids with him on his current book tour and couldn't attend.

"I wish I remembered more about it," April lamented.

"None of us were there at first - that was the trouble. You were only four at the time, but you're here today and that's the important thing. We can park here," Liz commented as she brought the car to a halt along the road. They got out and Liz retrieved a box from the back before the two trekked down into the ravine. The water was running at its usual spring level from the early melt of snows.

"It looks a lot different than the last time I was here...it's probably been five years," April estimated as she found a path down to the water's edge.

"I KNOW it's been five years for me," Liz agreed. "Some of it has changed for sure; things have grown since then." She looked around to get her bearings. "I'm going to have to retrace where it was." She walked down to the water's edge as well. "This is where Mom and Dad grabbed you by the coat while you and Farley floated by," she said, closing her eyes to replay the scene in her mind. "They hauled you out of the water, then I grabbed Farley's collar and brought him over here," she said, stepping off a few paces and then closing her eyes again to fix her location. She didn't dwell on Farley dying; even at fourteen, he might have lived longer if he hadn't jumped in to save April; and although the loss had lessened over time, it hadn't completely disappeared. "The tree is right...over...there." She opened her eyes and pointed, but did see the tree she expected. "Something's wrong." Keeping her eyes fixed on her goal, she walked back up the incline of the ravine to the spot where the tree should have been - the tree under which they had buried Farley, at the site of his last act of heroism.

Instead, what they found was something that used to be a healthy tree. Much of it had burnt away on one side, and the other side had shattered limbs. Both sisters stood and looked at the tree with a stunned look. "What happened?" April asked.

Liz walked around the tree and looked more closely at the two sides, then the surrounding area were several smaller branches lay on the ground. "I think it got hit by lightning - look how some of the branches got blown off and only partially burned."

"It can't be dead; it can't!"

"April, it can't be helped."

"No Liz, I don't believe that. I made my career helping bring back animals that other people had given up on; this tree IS Farley to me, and we're not giving up on him just like he didn't give up on me."

"Well, let's take a better look." Liz inspected the tree more closely in order to examine the branches. "It looks like it's still got some buds on it that are green, so it's not completely dead yet. I don't know anything about trees, but something might be done."

"I don't either. Know any tree doctors?"

"I don't even know anyone that works at a green nursery. But if anything can be done, I bet it has to be pretty fast. This was probably caused by that storm last week, and that damage could only get worse. Who would know best?"

Both women stood and thought for a few moments, before uttering the same word. "Dad."

...

John Patterson didn't know a lot about trees. He knew they dropped leaves he had to rake, kids fell out of them occasionally and if you had two at just the right distance apart you could have a pretty nice hammock stretched between them. But as a retired dentist of many years, he knew a lot of people that knew things. And there was something still satisfying about having his grown daughters come to him to seek advice, even if he didn't know the answers to their questions. If they would just ask him about model trains or molars once, he'd be ready.

So there was precedent when April and Elizabeth walked through his door seeking advice. "Hey you two! To what do I owe the pleasure?"

What caught his attention though, was their emotional state. Neither happy nor solemn, they came in distressed and hurried. "Dad, who's a good tree man?" April asked, being the first to reach him.

"Tarzan?" Through natural temperament and years as a dentist trying to get his patients to relax, John was quick with a bit of humor to set people at ease. It wasn't working this time, and he saw his joke fall flat. "What's wrong?"

"We just came from Farley's tree," Elizabeth explained. "It's been twenty-five years today and we were gonna put a small plaque up. But it looks like it got hit by lightning, and it's dying."

"We can't lose it, Dad," April pleaded. "We already lost Farley - we can't lose his tree too."

"I can see you're both upset. Sometimes trees die, just like people. But that tree is probably pretty young, as far as trees go. Has it really been that long since the biggest scare in my life? If we had got there one minute later..."

"Dad, the tree!" April interrupted.

"Oh, sorry. Let me think..." he said as he gave it some thought. "I don't know anybody myself, but Fred Henley was talking a few years ago about having some landscaping done. It was a pretty big job, so he might know somebody. I think I might still have his number - I guess I could call him." His daughters stood still and stared at him. "I guess I could call him now."

...

"Thanks for coming out to take a look, Philipe." John shook hands with the younger man who strode up in rubber work boots and gloves. His shirt had a patch emblazoned with 'Stoléru Tree Specialties'. "It could have waited until next week."

"I was in town anyway, Mr. Patterson - I might not even be in this area next week. When I found out who you were and why you called, I came out." It turned out that Philipe was a former patient of John's when he was younger; he had gone on to study agronomy and worked in the northern part of the Regional Municipality of Durham. "Is this the patient?" he asked, pointing at the badly-scarred tree.

"Sure is. Think you can save it?"

"Let's give it a look over." While John, Liz and April stood silently and shifted the weight on their feet occasionally, Philipe inspected the tree. He took video and pictures with his phone, gently probed a bud and part of the burned area with his knife tip, and even took a look at the roots and the immediate area surrounding the site. "Does the ravine have water in it year round?"

"It usually dries up for about a month in the early fall," Liz answered; John and April agreed.

Philipe dug into the soil a few inches, studied the earth, and covered the hole back up. He punched his phone screen a few times and read a few notes before addressing the family. "This is a White Cedar; normally, I'd expect for one to live for about 300 years or so in this type of environment. I'd say this one is closer to fifty, maybe sixty - it's still pretty new, as far as trees go. As you've already noticed, there was a lot of damage...and yes, it looks like a classic lightning strike."

"Will it live?" April asked.

"Probably not by itself. There is some viable growth left, and even with that it might be pretty iffy. But the biggest problem is that wound - it's like a person that gets cut badly, but in this case it's a tree and instead of blood there is sap, for instance. Your skin helps keep disease out of your body and your blood inside; the tree's bark does the same thing. But a lot of the tree directly above that wound is not going to get the nutrients it needs to survive, and insects and bacteria will find it really easy to get inside and destroy the tree anywhere you see it discolored."

"So it probably won't make it," Liz summarized.

"I didn't say that. Left alone, it probably wouldn't. But there are some good things going for it right now. It's young, there is still some growth on parts of it, it's in a good place that should provide it enough water and sun, and the injury didn't happen too long ago. What I need to do is cut off and prune back the parts that aren't going to make it, which will let it concentrate what it can do with its resources on the good parts. There are still a few good shoots above the damage that aren't completely dead yet; I'm going to take some of those and graft them below the injury. Lastly, I'll take something that's kind of like wax and seal up anything exposed that's been cut away so nothing bad can get in; same with where I graft. We'll mulch around the base to help it, and maybe add a little fertilizer to give it a gentle boost."

"When can you do it, and how much do I pay you?" John asked. It had only been half a year since he last visited the site; Farley had been as much a part of his life as he had been for the kids.

Philipe looked at the time on his phone. "I can do it today; I've got everything I need on my truck. The conservation authorities have an agreement with my company already, so it won't cost you anything. Remember, I'm not guaranteeing it will work - but we have a fighting chance. We should know by mid-summer if most of the grafts took or not, and after that it just needs to be watched over and maybe pruned in the fall to keep it going right. But the longer we talk, the less daylight I have."

"Tell us how to help," April volunteered.

...

"There's something odd about it for sure - it's not what I'd call a normal tree shape," Elly said as she surveyed the tree. It was early July, and the family had gathered to view the tree together. Most of the grafts had taken and young limbs were growing out of the old trunk. The one main limb that had survived reached by itself into the sky, as if a lone adult raising his hand among a class of small children doing the same. The smaller limbs flanked it on either side.

Michael had returned from his tour and was on hand as well. "Where's the plaque that I had made?"

"I've got it still," Liz admitted. "With all that went on, I didn't even open it."

"Well give it to me then," April said, sticking out her hand. Liz handed the package over, and her sister ripped off the paper wrapping, looked at the plaque and threaded a bolt through the plaque. She then wrapped the chain loosely around the trunk and used a nut to fix the ends of the chain together before stepping back a little, straightened the plaque and announced "Ta da."

The group stepped closer to see. The plaque read:

-For Farley-
Every life saved
is a gem recovered

"I wanted something short," Michael explained.

"Thanks, Michael," April said.

"Beautifully said," Liz agreed.

"My son the writer," Elly said as she smiled.

"Hmmmm..." John muttered.

"Is that all you can say?" his wife asked.

"Sorry, I was just looking at the shape of the tree and thinking."

"I said it was odd."

"Yeah, but look at it and ignore the old limb. See where the new leaves are on either side of where the trunk was cut? They're the ears. And the plaque with the chain is a collar."

Elly looked and tried to imagine what her husband was trying to say - the picture clicked in her mind. "It looks a little like Farley!" The others did the same, and there was a little laughter as they too saw what John had seen. "I guess it does have a family resemblance, you might say."

John chuckled. "Or maybe it's not a cedar, but really a dogwood!"

The End

A/N: The comics page was the first part of the newspaper I would read every day when I used to subscribe. After that important part was covered, THEN I would go back and cover the more mundane things like local and world news.

For Better or For Worse was unusual in that the characters aged in real time; children grew up, and adults got older. This also meant that realistically, beloved family pets wouldn't be around forever either. It was a bold move to have a character die in a COMIC strip, and I remember reading about the reaction from Charles Schulz when he was told about the planned departure of Farley. He let Shermy more or less disappear as a character, but different artists - different approaches.

For the record, I understand there was an animated series based on the strip but I've never seen it.