What "Under the Gumbo Limbo" means

The Gumbo Limbo tree pictured in my blog design is actually a tree my mother grew from a cutting she brought back from the Bahamas. The tree is tall and magnificent. I have two trees that were cuttings grown from her Gumbo Limbo.

My mother's tree sits beside a stand of bamboo in the back yard of our family home. Before the bamboo, my childhood playhouse stood for many years. My father built it for me. It had louvre windows, vinyl flooring, a peaked roof and was painted yellow. The very back of the small rectangular one room structure had real glass windows that slid up to open.
The playhouse was a place my brother and I claimed as our own. We slept overnight in it and stored our bikes there. Behind the playhouse there was a huge Australian pine tree we would climb.

We loved that tree because it allowed us to see all our neighbors, including Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt who lived next door to us in a two story stucco house. Mr. Hoyt was very tall and strong. Mrs. Hoyt was very round and short. We could almost, but not quite, see into their bedroom window on the second floor. We would call out to them and Mr. Hoyt would come to the window and say good morning or good afternoon to us very politely. Neither of them ever yelled at us for disturbing their privacy or annoying them, although I'm sure we did. Our other neighbors could see us up in the tree but no one ever acknowledged our presence like the Hoyts. They were our favorites.

During a hurricane named Donna or Betsy, our playhouse was destroyed. The roof blew off, landing in the alley beside the Australian pine. I remember that hurricane very vividly, because the pouring rain and howling wind was very frightening, and because it blew down our playhouse and tree.

I wasn't living at home when the Gumbo Limbo tree was planted. I was in college then. When my mother died in 2009, the tree was 37 years old. It's peeling red skin, that gives it the nickname 'tourist' tree, is a deep russet and orange red and its leaves are dark green. The leaves are stiff and rustle against each other making a brushing noise with the slightest breeze.

Before I left my mother's house the final time, clean and sparkling inside, with its yard mowed and shrubbery trimmed, I took several photos of that tree. I wanted to remember it and how long it had stood there guarding my mother's house. It had traveled to the house as a twig, carried aboard the Irma Marie, a yacht named for my grandmother. It was planted lovingly, tended thoughtfully and grew to be almost 20 feet in height. I hope it will continue to live a very long life. 

Mr. and Mrs. Hoyt, my mother, who planted and loved the tree, and my father, who built our playhouse, and all the neighbors are gone now. Only the Gumbo Limbo and I know the stories about that house and the people who lived there. Only the two of us could write those tales. Eventually, we will.