Getting A Bad Memory Off Of My Chest

One of the things My Father wanted me to do over the summer was cut off branches from the big tree in our frontyard. It's getting huge and there are many branches that are starting to get quite close to the house. So, one day, he brings home this giant pole pruner and asks me to do it ... at some point.

I was reticent, for many reasons. First of all, obviously, this is a long fucking saw. I was able to prune the lilac bushes in the backyard because I was using a small pruning saw. This thing is longer than I am, at least six feet long. Moreover, I'd be cutting large branches (the dead ones, he emphasized) from a huge tree. I have no plan on how to cut them without them falling on me instead of the ground. And I have no glasses or hard hat to help me in case I screw up, which I knew I would. It was just dangerous. Finally, I think I know enough about pruning that you should wait until the tree begins shutting down its chloroform process before you start chopping pieces off of it. This isn't a lilac bush, whose blooms fall off fairly early into the spring. This is a full-fledged tree that won't shed its leaves until the fall; only then would I go prune its branches, plan or no plan.

Well, one weekend day I come home and see My Father toiling away at the tree, atop a ladder, pole pruner in hand. And I felt bad -- I didn't want to give the impression that I didn't want to do it, or that the chore he wanted me to do was stupid. I just had my own reasons not to do it, or at least not do it then. But I guess he didn't want to wait.
After thinking a bit inside, I felt guilty, so I helped My Father with picking up the branches that fell on the lawn. It looked like he didn't get hit with any of the debris he created with the pole pruner.

He didn't scold me for making him do something he thought I was going to do. And I don't think he's stored it in his head in order to get back at me for something completely unrelated that happened later. Maybe it didn't matter to him.

I'm glad about that. However, he did this about two months ago, right in the middle of summer, well into the tree's living season. Still think it wasn't a good idea to do it. I can see the tree dying because of the actions My Father took.