After my father’s death in May 2016, I thought about his lifelong interest in trees. He lived on a farm, grew up there, and stayed on that farm when he married. Was there until his last hospitalization and move to hospice. He loved his home and the land as much as he loved his family.

Dad on his Farmall

If you know anything about farming, it includes being a good steward of the land, taking care of all that nature provides on that acreage. And to make it even broader, what we do on one piece of land affects the whole. Dad could have been considered an environmentalist. He never took the land or the plants growing on it for granted. Particularly the trees.

As I sat there pondering the minister’s message and all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren who participated, I looked around at the little ones too, those ages 1 through 4. I remember thinking that they won’t have a memory of being here, most likely, and in the same breath, they won’t know what was important to their great grandfather unless someone tells them.

The thought stayed with me over the coming week and a story began to evolve, mainly for the little ones who would not otherwise remember. I took the story to my online critique group and my in-person group too. One sister and her son provided feedback at certain points as well.

One fellow writer, in particular, suggested organizing the story by seasons, and others contributed thoughts about colour and action. By September I was in touch with an artist who I had talked with about doing a project together earlier that year.

Neither Maja Wizor nor I knew when we met that one day in a writer’s workshop early in 2016 at the University of Guelph that we would collaborate on a book. Our small group — Maja and me — talked about doing something together. Me supplying the writing and she doing the art work. She was an illustrator after all. In between those times, a lot of things happened. She moved to the same city as me, and my Dad moved into hospice for his last days (months, as it turned out).

By September I had a fairly recognizable story to share with her and she agreed that it needed full page spreads to do the story justice. She put together a few sketches for me, and we decided on a timeline for the art work to be completed. In the meantime I would further refine the story.

My goal was to have the family copies ready for early January when our family traditionally gathered to celebrate Christmas and Dad’s birthday. I’d located a printer in driving distance and got a quote for the book format that Maja put together. I was so glad of her skill in that regard since layout is not an area of mine.

I worked with the rep at Innovative Ink. We got everything set up and I knew the price for the set number of books I requested. Not surprisingly, I guess, more family members were interested in copies. They ordered and paid for their copies and I would deliver them at the Christmas event. Just to make sure the colour was right, I ordered one print copy and looked it over at their shop before putting the rest to order.

With my first copy in hand, I sat in the car. Tears rolled down my face. This was for my father, an act of honour, respect and remembrance. This had been my grief project and now the tears could roll again. I had focused on the project at hand — my first picture book — and this was for my family.

I drove out one wintry day to pick up the order. The snow came down harder on my return trip but my heart was light. I drove carefully and by the time I arrived back in the city, the storm here was over. I had in the back of my car boxes of Harry’s Trees ready for the family gathering.

January 2017. My family was delighted. My nieces and nephews were excited, and so would their children when they were read to. We had a grand celebration of the book just by being together. We missed Dad in that melee, but it was in a good way.

As I shared the book with my writer friends, one of them, who was about to be my publisher, suggested taking it to a general market. Then she helped to make it happen. And I did celebrate that new version in a launch at our home town library.

This story will continue on a new post.

Front cover of the general market book

One of Maja’s lovely double page spreads.

I was so excited about this

And the French version