As the quiet days of summer passed in 1959, my friends and I were on top of the world unaware that the storms of life were gathering over head. I remember well that Saturday afternoon, in the middle of the Mohave desert, when, like most children on George Air Force Base, we were walking home from the movie matinee. We had just watched the Disney production of the Swift Family Robinson. In the movie, the family is shipwrecked on an island and they set about building this elaborate tree house. It was the perfect fantasy for four twelve year olds, Linda, Joan, Cheryl and I. We imagined what it would be like if it were our family shipwrecked together. Suddenly, one of them came up with the brilliant idea of building our own tree house.

“Have you seen any trees around here lately? All we’ve got is the Joshua trees,” I said. My friends looked at me as though I just said that we were ’grounded’ forever. I was the dream maker of the group. If I couldn’t imagine a tree house, then surely, it would be impossible. I felt as though I had burst their bubble and let them down.

After thinking about it for a while, I came up with an idea. “Wait, we may not have trees but we have plenty of tumbleweeds. Let’s make a tumbleweed house.” I suggested.

My friends thought it was a great idea and so, after church and dinner the next day, with canteens of cool water strapped to our belts, we saddled our bicycles like Indian ponies and made our way out into the desert to collect tumbleweeds. We rolled them along like snowballs and stacked them up to make walls and then plied up three exceptionally large ones on top to form the roof. Next, we gathered pockets full of broken pieces of glass in a rainbow of colors, shapes and sizes. These were to become jewels in our mosaic floor in the center of our ‘tree house‘. To four innocent young females, it was so cool! Wow! We did it. We were able to bring our dream to life. Our very own tree house.

Next, we hiked to the river bed and hauled back some smooth stones to use for seats. We placed them in a circle around our mosaic. For four young girls, it was a tree house as beautiful as any seen in the movies. We spent the rest of that hot summer planning adventures on the floor of the desert within the shade of our tumbleweed tree house. We packed picnic lunches of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Kool-aid and cookies, we told stories, went on treasure hunts and even tried once, unsuccessfully, to talk our parents into letting us spend the night. It was magical.

As the quiet days of that summer passed, we were on top of the world unaware that the storms of life were gathering. Just before school started, Cheryl’s father died suddenly of a heart attack. Death wasn’t suppose to invade the playful lives of 12 year olds. It just wasn’t something we had ever expected.

I remember attending the funeral. It was the first one I had ever been to since my Grandfather died when I was five. How my heart ached as I filed past the open casket and turned to face my best friend and how I wept that night alone in my bed. I felt guilty that I still had my father and she didn’t. I wondered why God had taken him home now, when she still needed him. I thought parents were supposed to always be there for their children.

In my grief, as I helped Cheryl, her brother and mother packed up their belongings preparing for the move off the Airbase, I contemplated on how unfair life could be and came to believe that tree houses and fairy tales only existed in the movies. Linda, Cheryl, Joan and I made one last trip to the tumbleweed tree house. It was here we promised to be friends forever as we said good-bye.

We each moved away one by one as our fathers were transferred and it was only a short time until we lost touch but as the years have passed, I have come to understand how important hopes, dreams, tree houses and fairy tales are in our lives. Everyone needs a dream to hang onto when those unexpected storm clouds begin to gather in life’s sky. I understand too, that when life doesn’t give us trees, tumbleweeds work just as well.

I don’t know what happened to our tumble weed tree house, but I like to think that the mosaic, covered by the sands of time, will one day reappear just in time to restore hope in the lives of some young children and change their lives as it did ours one Mohave summer.