12.Caleb McKenzie Baker’s amazing connections with trees for his family.

I met Caleb’s mom and aunt at the Helping Parents Heal conference in August 2026. After the conference, I reached out to ask if they would like to include the trees planted in Caleb’s honor on The Aloha Tree website. I was deeply moved by their stories of continued connection with Caleb—and how he helped lead his family to the right tree and location—and wanted to share them with others.

This first tree is the first one Caleb led me too when I thought I would never be able to fulfill his wishes to be a redwood tree on the  east coast.  

I had no idea that Dawn Redwood trees even existed.

My mom and I were at the top of a viewing tower looking out over 180 acres of trees in Dayton, OH.  I closed my eyes, spun around with my finger pointed out and blindly chose a direction for us to go when we got back down to the bottom of the tower.  We walked a straight line, off trail and along the way I spoke out loud about how much I wished Caleb was with us right then because he would have liked exactly where we were walking. It was early March and many of the trees were still bare which is a beauty of a different kind.  As we walked into a clearing there was a very tall tree with the most beautiful wood in front of us.  It had no foliage and all I could see was how majestic it looked even without it’s greenery.  I said to my mom, “What IS this tree??!!” With such delight and wonder…it lit me up just to behold it.  I could see a little tag on it so I got up real close and personal to read the tag and to my utter astonishment it said it was a Dawn Redwood tree.  Oh my word!! I looked it up immediately and learned that they are the smallest of the redwood trees and were thought be extinct until one was discovered in mid-20th-century China.  It is a living fossil first known only from fossils until its discovery.  The fossils date back at least 150 million years.  Of course Caleb would lead me directly to such a tree!  I tear up just revisiting that memory.  

Tree number two:

Now that we knew about Dawn Redwood trees we asked about the possibility of having one planted at the MetroPark closest to our home in Ohio where I was lucky enough to walk some trails  with Caleb before he changed worlds.  

We got permission granted on Valentine’s Day .  

The park ranger helped us find a young Dawn Redwood tree to plant and he gave us the “ok” to put some of Caleb’s ashes in the earth when we had the tree planting ceremony.  (Each tree has Caleb’s cremains blended into the soil.)

That tree was the most cathartic for us because my husband went there every day after work to water the tree and sit on a bucket and just be with Caleb in the nature setting we love so well.  The tree is planted in front of the water and it’s a beautiful view.  

Believe it or not, I found a Qigong class called “Immortal Tree Qigong” and took my first class with them after we planted Caleb’s tree.  They class took place in the park where i could see Caleb’s little baby tree AND the first class I took was called “Plant the tree”!!!!!

I nearly shot up to the sky!!  lol!! I asked the instructor if she knew about the tree that just got planted behind her…and she did not.  We all dropped our jaws!

There goes Caleb again!

I had the pleasure of doing Qigong there every Saturday morning with my son and then waking the trails afterwards.

Caleb really took care of us the best he could during that time.

Tree number three:

Tim’s job relocated us from OH to S.C. in July 2025.  It was a bittersweet kind of move.  The hardest part was leaving Caleb’s trees behind.  I asked Caleb to help me find a new place to sponsor a tree in his honor.  

So he sent us to visit a place 20 minutes from our new home.  I swear he said to me “this is the place, Mom.”  I even told my husband, Caleb said this is the place so let’s go check it out.  

As soon as we parked, we met the executive director and asked if they allowed people to sponsor trees with plaques and he said they did. We told him briefly about what we were thinking of…a Dawn Redwood….whether we planted one or if they had a young one already established.  We could do either one and he showed us the young Dawn redwoods they had planted already.  My husband was drawn to one that was situated just across a bridge by a babbling brook and seemed to be the same age as the baby we left in Ohio so we picked that tree.  As we walked some more, I spied a tiny little tree that looked recently planted and looked strangely enough like an actual California Redwood tree.  I didn’t believe what I was seeing so I checked it with my tree app and it confirmed that it was a giant redwood tree.  Whoa!!! What was THAT doing there???

I asked the director and he said, “oh Yeah…a couple came here a few weeks ago and brought this baby redwood tree all the way from California and asked if we would plant it here.  We said yes, and then we never heard from them again.”  Oh joy!! Caleb strikes again!! This time he led me to the giant redwood tree he wanted to be…a California redwood right here where we just moved to in S.C.!!! The director tried to dissuade me from sponsoring that tree because it’s a risk having it outside of it’s native area.  

We said we understood the risk…this is our life now, right?? We know better than most people about life and its risks so we secured sponsorship for that baby redwood who someone just happened to drop off in their travels from the west coast to the east coast.  

We held a ceremony for each of those trees too once the plaques were installed and blended Caleb’s ashes into the soil.