Oh, and here is Sam, last year at 15, with his arm around his girlfriend.

The tree has changed over the years. What started as a lark is now laden with meaning. There are families, grown. There are friends, deceased. There are couples, remarried. There are loved ones and liked ones, and those who are both. There are windows into souls and windows into nothing more, really, than the passing scene. And there are others, many others.

Its branches sag with memories.

Jessica, I expect, would disagree. Those Polaroids, messy as life itself, don’t “sag,” she’d say. They shine.