My first grader named the trees in our backyard. George, Lily, and Steve - the fast-growing poplars - and Teeny, the slightly stunted but recovering tulip poplar. The first three were planted 5 or 6 years ago when we first moved in to provide some much needed shade in our south-facing yard. Teeny and an ill-fated companion tree were planted the following season.  Teeny seemed to battle a disease of some kind for the first two seasons, but now is making a glorious comeback. The one-foot twig is now nearly 6 feet tall with leaves the size of an adult's hand.

As for George, Lily, and Steve...billed as "fast growers," they didn't disappoint, shooting upward by feet, not inches, every season. The thick green leaves sparkled in the summer sunlight and turned bright gold in the fall, rustling like taffeta in the wind. In just 5 years, they'd reached their maximum height of 20 feet. They are the hot hangout for goldfinches, cardinals, grackles, robins and song sparrows.

But this spring, something was wrong with George. Over a third of his branches were dead. And though we hadn't noticed initially, he hadn't grown as much as Lily and Steve the previous season. He'd been healthy enough to produce buds on those dead branches, and the twigs that supported them were still pliable, but the larger branch feeding them was dry. Dead.

We debated whether to wait till fall or take care of it now, but we knew George had to come down.

The idea made me ill. I felt like I was betraying some sacred trust. I thought about how, for five years, I'd walked around our backyard, giving the trees pep talks  - encouraging the leaves to pop, telling them how beautiful their fall foliage looked, thanking them for the much needed shade.

As I walked around George, seeking a reason or hope for redemption, I noticed holes bored into the trunk, sap running down like blood from bullet wounds.  George was bleeding.

In a way, it didn't matter if it was the bugs or a fungus.  It was like having cancer and pneumonia. One of them was going to be fatal.

Over the weekend, George came down.  We'd explained to our first grader that George was sick and we didn't want Steve and Lily to catch what he had. But she did ask her dad to leave a stump so she would have a place to sit.

George's branches will have a second life as a trellis for our vigorous pink New Dawn climbing rose. And there may be enough branches left to build a rustic arbor for the clematis I got for Mother's Day. My friend Craig at AmazinglyRustic.com, a genius with a lathe, is loaning us a chainsaw to finish the work on the largest part of the trunk and in exchange, we're giving him some of George's best, which may have new life as pens, yo-yos, bowls, or boxes in Craig's workshop.

Below the top of the stump, new poplar shoots are pushing up. Time will tell. This could be the beginning of George Junior.