Anyone heading down Cromesett Road might notice a tree tastefully decorated for a new holiday each month. But the tree isn’t just for decoration — it represents a memorial to a lost loved one.

“My sister had a heart defect at birth and we didn’t know it,” Cindy Hicks said. “She was on a walk with her 1 and 3-year-old babies and she collapsed. She went into cardiac arrest and passed.”

Hick’s sister, Katrina Flynn was just 34-years-old when she passed Dec. 3 of 2021. Hicks said in the years following, Christmas was no longer filled with joyous decorating and she was “so incredibly heartbroken and filled with so much sadness.”

“[Christmas] was always a time that I loved,” she said. “I loved decorating and getting festive for the kids because that’s what you do, and when she passed away that spirit went away.”

Hicks said her house was always lit up during Christmas; pinwheels lined her yard for several other holidays and decorating was one of her favorite things to do before her sister’s passing.

But a Facebook post Hicks created last year became the first step in getting her spirit back.

“I posted something on my [Facebook] page that I find it really hard to find the inspiration or desire to decorate because this time of year brings so much sadness,” she said.

The post led to a friend of a friend gifting her a Christmas tree, which brought the desire to decorate back.

“Instantaneously it gave me so much excitement,” she said. “It just gave me that little thing I needed to inspire me again.”

For the first time in three years, Hicks’ decorating spirit returned and since then it hasn't waned. As Christmas came and went and the new year rolled around, the tree remained. The Christmas decorations remained until February, when Hicks got a new decorating idea.

“I decorated for Valentine’s Day and it had pink lights and it was absolutely gorgeous,” she said. “March has Saint Patrick’s Day, so I decorated for that. April has Easter, so I put an Easter egg on top with beautiful pastel lights and Easter eggs all over, and it has just continued.”

Hicks added the tree has been growing in popularity, catching people’s eye as they drive down the road.

“People will stop and say ‘I love your tree.’ It’s kind of silly,” she said.

Currently the tree is decorated in the nation’s colors for Memorial Day, and Hicks said she has no plans to stop decorating anytime soon.

“I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do for June,” she said. “Somebody said I should put pictures of my husband on like ornaments with a big picture of his head for Father’s Day, but June will be a surprise.”

She added she does most of the decorating but occasionally her husband will offer some ideas.

“He helped me with the big Easter egg on top,” she said. “He said ‘get one of those big plastic Easter eggs, hollow it out and put lights inside.’”

Flynn’s kids are now 4 and 6-years-old and Hicks said she would love to decorate a memorial tree in Besse Park with them in honor of their mother.

“I would decorate it all in teal — that was her favorite color,” she said.