Tree was like her name, a tree. A young tree, a sapling, a dance in the wind, a waving of graceful sheltering arms. How she combined that with a scalpel intellect is an amazing mystery. She was a brilliant dryad, at once both fierce and gentle, and losing my friend Tree is like the loss that grows with the loss of each tree in the forest. I mourn as much for the loss of my friend that was, as for the woman she would have been, and recall what they said about John F. Kennedy, that sometimes it seems like only the good die young.

Karey Perks