A tree-mendous goodbye: Paris couple finds a sad surprise inside beloved maple

Casandra Turnbull

Managing Editor

After nearly four decades shading a Bendemere Road backyard, a family maple appeared to have one final expression to share

Cutting down a beloved tree can be an emotional experience. For Dianne Kosar, it seems the feeling may have been mutual.

Kosar and her husband, Gary, recently made the difficult decision to remove a large maple tree from the backyard of their Bendemere Road home after disease had taken an increasing toll on it over the past five years.

The maple had been part of their property and their family for nearly four decades.

The Kosars built their home in 1987 on what was then Golf Links Road, later renamed Paris Links Road and now Bendemere Road. The following summer, they planted several trees and shrubs around the property.

Over the years, most of those original plantings disappeared. The maple endured.

It provided shade through countless summers and stood watch as the Kosars' children grew from youngsters aged three and seven into adults who eventually moved away.

This fall, however, its time came.

“I cried when it came down...the last of the originals,” Dianne shared in an email to the Paris Independent.

Gary began cutting the large limbs into firewood and sliced several pieces, or “coins,” for his wife to place throughout her gardens as keepsakes from the tree.

That's when the maple offered one last surprise.

On the freshly cut ends of two adjoining sections, natural markings in the wood formed what looked remarkably like a face, complete with two eyes and a decidedly downturned mouth.

Apparently, nobody was happy about the situation.

“It appears that my beloved shade tree was sad as well to leave us,” Dianne said.

Curious to see whether the markings continued through the wood, Gary cut farther into the limb. 

They didn't. He had apparently made his original cut in precisely the right spot to reveal the forlorn face.

Dianne admits she was holding out hope for a happier ending.

“I was actually hoping he would stumble upon a happy face so that we would have a Greek tragedy in our garden conversation piece, but no it was not to be,” she said.

Instead, the unusual wooden faces will find a home in her gardens, serving as a reminder of a tree that quietly marked nearly 40 years of family life.

“I certainly wish that he had found a smiley face so I wouldn't feel so bad about losing that tree,” Dianne said.

For now, the Kosars are adjusting to a backyard without the familiar canopy that greeted them each day.

Dianne said she already misses the maple's wonderful morning shade.

And judging by its final expression, perhaps the tree misses them, too.