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Then you could cremate the tree and use it's ashes to grow another

The correct answer. Life is a continuous process.

We planted a tree (from seed) when each of our kids were born. Being the superstitious, symbol creating species that we are it was a little stressful for the first year or so in case the trees didn't make it and so foretold our childrens fate.

Yeah, this is awful. Someone forgets to water the sapling, deer chews on it, etc, etc... BAM! You've just killed dad again.

If a deer eats your dad-tree, dad-tree becomes dad-tree-deer.

That's a good point, you should use Soil IQ [1] to make sure that doesn't happen.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/10/soil-iq/