At the victorious start of summer vacation last month, my schoolteacher husband, John, fell out of the old maple tree in our yard, breaking an assortment of bones and injuring his shoulder. In the aftermath of his accident, the rest of our summer began. One filled with hospitals, doctor’s visits and physical therapy appointments.

John has been required to wear a sling and watch the kids, and I take turns pushing the lawn mower. He has had to tolerate my driving. He had to stand by as I brought the air conditioner into the house in the wheelbarrow so it could be installed in the bedroom window. And he has had to learn to write left-handed.

Forced into rest and relaxation, he has been made to sway leisurely in the hammock that is strung up in the very tree he fell out of. And lying in that hammock, he was forced to look up at the very tree limb that he had been sawing when he slipped and fell. That old, dead limb remained to taunt him and remind him of his close brush and his good luck.

That is until last week, when we all convened under the old maple for a bonfire and ceremonious burning of the offending branch.

Earlier that day John duct-taped a long piece of lumber to the Zabat saw in order to cut off the rest of the branch. Our son, Sam, did most of the sawing. Then, Sam, John and our daughter, Lily, pulled the limb down with a rope. It was a triumph that put us in a party mood, and we set about inviting friends and neighbors to a cookout and bonfire later that evening.

Maybe it is the crude, primal instinct of revenge or just a love of gallows humor that motivated our celebration (after all, think what happens to the bull that gores its owner… ), but it was a fun evening filled with laughter and friendship.

People were invited to “rub the bump” (the bony protrusion of broken collar bone now permanently part of John’s shoulder) for good luck.

Everyone asks (with a raised eyebrow) what John was doing in the tree when he fell. To which I reply: he is always in a tree. This spring, he and Lily were out climbing and “swinging birches” as depicted in Robert Frost’s poem “Birches.” I’m told this led to roaming around the property and climbing even higher trees (he fell only about 10 feet out of the maple).

John has been up in that old maple hundreds of times. The kids have a tire swing in it and it is one of the first trees they learned to climb. John built a small platform in the branches that served as their first tree house. When he fell, John had been trimming dead branches… “for our safety.”

John is now doing physical therapy and is recovering well. He is a fortunate man.