"I'm not dead yet!"

About four weeks ago, I lost a tree, and I did not take it well. Oh, I was not at all remiss about having the remains removed, and much of what was left of it was eventually ground down into a fine, inedible paste, but still: of all the trees I have, this is one of the ones I would have most hated to lose. So I'm quite possibly overreacting to the presence of this ... this branch suddenly pushing itself up from the ground at the intersection of grass and wood chips, and I'm trying not to see it as, say, a reenactment of the last few frames of Carrie. But I know this branch-in-the-making on sight — I'd trimmed quite a few of them off that tree, and some more off its sister to the east — and if I didn't know better, and let's face it, I don't, I'd swear the tree was trying to come back. And I'm thinking I may as well let it. (Click the picture and it grows, so to speak.)