When Hurricane Irma unleashed her callousness on the Rondarosa, it was hard to see the trees, decades old, fall. “You can plant more trees,” folks said. “But you don’t understand. I’ll never live long enough to see them that large again,” I replied tear-eyed. I mourned them because I treasure trees. It was Mama’s backyard, though, that held the greatest disappointment. The top half of an enormous tree had fallen and bent over one end of her clothes line. Daddy believed in building to last forever whatever he built. Even as a child, I knew that Daddy was the little pig who built the sturdy house and turned to the other two pigs and said, “You can huff and you can puff but you can’t blow my house down.” Sure enough, Daddy built that kind of house. When a broken plumbing line flooded the house several years back and caused extreme damage, the insurance adjustor said, “If this house wasn’t brick and if it didn’t have such solid walls, it’d be better for us to total loss this.” Daddy had built the walls with concrete blocks. He loved cement. He either did the work himself or stood side-by-side and worked hand-in-hand with the electrician, plumber or brick mason.