Janie and the tree

The tree creaked and stretched, warm sunshine drying the dew off it's leaves. The summer had been warm, with heavy rains, and new growth had made it bigger everywhere, including it's girth. It almost looked like it was getting a pot belly.
The creaking sounded like singing, both rythmic and soothing, as though it was singing a lullabye.
Janie stretched out under it, sprawled on her mother's favorite blanket, thinking back on how she'd seen her mother slowly fade away, worn down by a lifetime of babies and distant men and children who left early and came back late, late enough to see her last days.
She'd understood, not many people wanted to stay in Grand Marais, but it had been home to both Janie and her Mom for both of their lives.
As she leaned up against the tree trunk, she felt some part of her mother drifiting out of it, oddly comforting. She and her sisters had spent a lot of money having this tree injected with her mother's DNA, and maybe someday somebody would do the same for her. It was the kind of afterlife she'd enjoy, being a tree.

Human DNA/tree research is real:
"In an artistic response to the advancement of biotech, Biopresence has become its own godlike entity. Biopresence is an art venture currently based in the UK, which, in short, aims to preserve human genetic material by inserting it into living trees. The trees thus become "living memorials" or "transgenic tombstones" for the humans whose DNA they contain. This may top cryogenics for unusual final resting options."

http://http://www.inhabitat.com/entry_633.php