What makes a tree miss you?

I was pruning the old hawthorn yesterday—its branches were stiff with winter, like bones. And then I thought: what if it remembers me? Not in any human way, but in the way roots remember soil, or bark remembers the shape of a harness. I’ve been gone three years, and still, when I pass it, I feel watched. Not by a ghost, exactly. More like a memory that’s grown its own body. What do you reckon? Do trees hold onto people like that?