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The Mystery of Life

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Three days after Chris’ sister’s death day we were confronted with Chris’ birth day. Not that we ever really know ‘what to do’ after the death of a loved one—with our distance from her, we had no physical busy-ness to attend to, and without an impending funeral, no travel plans. We were alone with our thoughts, our memories, and our sadness. And a birthday. It ‘should’ have been a celebration, and when the day arrived, we could not gather our energy enough to do…anything.

I’ve always liked to ‘know’ things—my curiosity naturally led to my studying science. Questions, experiments, data, knowledge. Human nature is just as intriguing to me as the nature of our world, albeit a bit more difficult to explain. But there are things in our world that remain as mysteries, and birth and death are two of them. We know quite a bit of the ‘mechanics’ of both, how babies are made and develop, and even the cellular signaling that takes place before labor begins, and we know the physical signs and signals of impending death. But so much of both of these life transitions falls into the realm of mystery. We cannot get the answers or even gather much data about either one because of the very ‘nature’ of the occurrence.

And then it occurred to me that many of the death days of my relatives fell within days of birth days of my kids—brother-in-law, dad, grandmother, and grandfather. Maybe December is a bad month for dying. Or maybe these mysteries were more linked than we know. But how does a person ‘celebrate’ a Happy Birth Day so close to a Sad Death Day? We did resign ourselves to our understandable low energy on Chris’ birthday, and we figured out a way to honor Mary and our sadness and to celebrate Chris the next day. With no surprise to anyone who reads this, we took to the woods. It was another beautiful snowy day, though some would argue with me about the beauty of yet another cloudy, gray day. We took our snowshoes up to Charles Lindbergh State Park, crossed the bridge, and began our trek through the quiet forest.

But first, we stopped on the bridge to gaze at the ‘ice art’ that had formed with ice and snow and open water. Black and white abstraction.

A snow-laden tree branch had leaned low over the creek and seemed to be a shelter place for animals, as the snow was packed with tracks.

The snowy, abstract creek path cut through the trees, providing life-sustaining water to the winter animals and beauty to the passers-by.

We were not the only ones on the midday trail that day—two young men wearing police vests snowshoed the circular trail, easily passing us with strong strides and pleasantries. We met a wizened old man in only a thin gray sweatshirt that exposed his bumpy, wrinkled neck. He stopped and talked about the young policemen and about his new snowshoes. He wouldn’t want to be a policeman these days and warned about all the drug dealers, even as the distinct smell of alcohol emanated from his body. He didn’t think his snowshoes were working the way they should. We politely tried to troubleshoot for him, but he insisted he would have to return them. Not our usual trail mates.

The silence of the snowy forest allowed us to just be as we needed to be. Sometimes we talked—about the wizened old man (kudos to him for getting out there with new snowshoes!), about the policemen (were they on duty?), about Mary (remember when…)—and sometimes we were as silent as the trees. Moving through the snow, working our muscles, helped integrate the musings, memories, and feelings. The questions, the sadness, the low energy, the longing for connection with those who were feeling the same feelings were all accepted, were all okay, were all confirmed and blessed by the Spirit of the Trees.

Towards the end of our hike, Chris noticed the sky was loosening up—patches of blue began to show. The sun eventually shone through the trees. Chris stopped and faced the low-lying sun, letting the winter-feeble warmth hit his face. It was just what he needed.

Abstraction is ‘the process of generalizing complex events in the real world to the concepts that underlie them.’ It’s not just about art. It’s about life. It’s about birth and about death. It’s about relationships and about ourselves. It’s about simplifying the dizzyingly complex issues that confront us in order to try to make sense of them and attain some peace. Nature is a nurturing domain that facilitates that process of sense-shaping and peace-making.

After our satisfying snowshoe hike, we warmed up at a cozy little restaurant in Little Falls that serves delicious food. We celebrated Chris’ birthday with burgers and carrot cake.

We managed to celebrate a birth day in the aftermath of a death day. I wouldn’t call it a Happy day, but it was a productive day, a satisfying day. There is mystery in death, in birth, in art, in creation, and in God. There is mystery in brokenness, in beauty, in ugliness, and in healing. There is mystery in how they are all connected. The simplified expression of them all just may be Love, which paradoxically may be the most complex entity of all.

Begin, Again, at the Beginning

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I wanted to begin the New Year at the beginning of the Mississippi River—it seemed like a wonderfully symbolic way to leave the old year behind and begin again with the new year. It was the antithesis of the Times Square chaos of people, noise, and celebration; it was the three of us—Chris, Emily, and me, it was unbelievably quiet, and the fiesta was a frolic in the frosty forest on snowshoes. We walked out of the old year and into the new year with hope and the renewal that comes from a flip of the calendar. It is like a universal ‘permission’ to lay down the things we no longer want to carry and an ‘encouragement’ to begin again. Little did we know on that day that in one week’s time we would have to ‘pick up’ what we did not want to carry and begin, again, with another round of January grief.

With the beginning of the Mississippi River is the start of the Great River Road—3,000 miles of National Scenic Byway that runs on both sides of the River at various places through ten states. Here at Itasca State Park is the beginning of the Great River Road; it is the same road we turn off from to get to our home in Sartell; it is the same road that goes through St. Paul where our son Aaron lives; it is the same road that goes through tiny Cassville, Wisconsin where Chris’ folks were born, raised, and buried; and it is the same road that goes through the metropolitan area of St. Louis, Missouri where a little girl named Mary Brake lived at the beginning of her life.

By our second day at Itasca—New Year’s Day—we were getting our bearings. It takes a while to do so when in a new place. It takes a while to do so when death impinges on our lives.

The Great Mississippi River begins at a pile of rocks where water flows from the North Arm of the wishbone-shaped Lake Itasca. It flows north for a time, then arcs east, southeast, southwest, then southeast again until it maintains its southward flow. It took a while for it to get its bearings, too, I guess.

What a fascination (or is it merely function?) we have for ‘crossing’ a creek, a stream, or a River. In the summertime, thousands of people cross the source of the Mississippi on the rocks or by wading in the shallow water. Not fifty yards downstream was a thick wooden plank placed across the mighty maiden river. I wasn’t the first to walk the snowy plank. A little ways down the trail was another bridge where I could see another bridge from which I saw a fourth bridge! I wonder how many bridges cross the 2,552 miles of great, winding River?!

And so it begins….

With our map, our bearings, a good night’s sleep, a wonderful cabin-cooked breakfast, and our enthusiasm for the New Year, we strapped on our snowshoes to follow the two-mile loop of Dr. Roberts Trail. It was narrow and ungroomed, a perfect snowshoe trail. The first stretch was on a boardwalk through a bog. Patches of tannin-orange and brown bog water showed through the snow, and even with its lazy flow, I wondered why it wasn’t frozen like the large Lake Itasca we walked beside.

Beard Lichen that had fallen from a tree

A boardwalk bridge lifted us to a little hill where the Old Timer’s Cabin overlooked the Lake. It was the first building project of the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) at Itasca, which began in December 1933. Also notable is the size of the logs—a cabin built with only four logs!

The trail followed the east arm of Lake Itasca and climbed a high ridge. The trees were ghostly with frost in the cloudy, foggy day.

Green Lichens and red Highbush Cranberry berries were almost shocking in their brilliant color compared to the vast white/gray/brown landscape we ‘shoed’ through.

After our climb to the ridge, we descended to a small lake about halfway around the loop. It looked wild and remote.

We continued to pass by giant White Pines, the ‘ancient’ ones in the diverse, frosted forest. It was a snowshoe hike that opened my lungs and strained my legs. When we stopped to rest, the snowy quiet bathed my senses, and it all felt so good.

Towards the end of the trail we saw this little snowman tree—an evergreen wrapped in a blanket of snow—surrounded by his young deciduous friends.

A cluster of Paper Birch trees epitomized our old year/new year weekend. The old Birch had wounds and peeling bark, layers of lichens and moss, and had lost the white luster of a young Birch. The young ones grew from the base of the elder and had been nourished by the extensive root system of the old one. Old and new ending and starting from the same place.

We ended our year in the same place we began our new year, and yet, it still had a different feel from one day to the next. The Mississippi River runs deep in the heart and soul of those who lived and died on and beside the River like Chris’ family had in the little village of Cassville. Chris feels it when he sees the River. My feelings about the River are more primitive, I think. I see it as life-giving water, a metaphoric trail of our life’s flowing journey, a barrier and boundary that stresses us in our quest to ‘move on,’ and a rich source of unbridled beauty. The Great River Road, complete with all its bridges, seems to be our human solution to encompass all of those things. I didn’t realize until I was writing how the The Great River Road, along with the flowing River, has connected our present living location to the Brake homeplace in Wisconsin and to the place where Chris’ only sister Mary began her life.

Mary was born with Down Syndrome, and in the mid-fifties, it was common practice for the medical community to recommend and facilitate the institutionalization of babies like Mary. She never came home from the hospital but was sent to a place on the other side of the state—by the Great River. Imagine the shock and trauma of every member of the family, especially for Mary and Chris’ Mom. Mary eventually returned to the west side of the state, closer to home, and she spent holidays and vacations with her parents and five brothers. Finally, with the social emergence of group homes, she had a real home to live and work in—she flourished at her vocational services job for thirty-seven years and built friendships with her cohorts and caregivers with her loving and outgoing personality. She was a joy to our family and to all who met her in so many ways. Mary’s life ended one week after the beginning of the New Year. She will be buried high on a hill that overlooks the Great River in Cassville. We will travel the The Great River Road to be there.

And thus, we begin, again, at the beginning of a New Year with hope and expectations. We also begin, again, at the beginning of another January of grief at the loss of a sibling, the same as we were just one year ago when Chris’ brother Jon died. But we aren’t really starting at the beginning—the slate does not get wiped clean—but it is a new beginning, nonetheless. Our grief over Mary’s death gets added to the grief over Jon’s death and brother Paul’s death, and Chris’ parents’ deaths, and my Dad’s December death seven years ago, along with the ongoing grief of broken relationships that have a deep river flowing through them with no bridge in sight. What does one do with such grief? It will take a while for us to get our bearings again, but we will. With each grief-filled experience, we have learned that we will get through it, even when the hurt feels unbearable. We have become resilient in a way that wasn’t planned or wanted. It has strained our hearts and made them stronger. It has opened our awareness to the tragedy, joy, heartbreak, goodness, chaos, and peace of living these lives we have been given. And every time we walk in the forest, we will be bathed in unbridled beauty and quiet, and it will all feel so good.

A Humming Song of Hallelujah

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I’m a couple weeks behind the amazing Autumn leaf color-fest here in Minnesota—by now, most have fallen to the ground. But social displays of wonder are preempted by occurrences of life, death, and life. The possibility of losing a loved one (and I want to add the word ‘again’) grabs one’s attention from the mundane day-to-day as well as the seasonal wonder. It focuses our attention on the past, on the relationship, and on the absolute and pure preciousness of a person. When death is on deck, it changes things.

I was emotionally exhausted when we came back from Missouri. Everything tends to grind to a halt for me as I try to process everything that has happened. The first day back I was rather catatonic—I didn’t move much, and my thinking about anything was blurry and scattered. I sat outside and let the sunlight sink into my skin. The following weekend, Chris and I journeyed to the golden cathedral of a Maple forest. A forest of mostly Sugar Maples turns the most brilliant yellow-gold in those fleeting days of Autumn color. Being a prairie girl, it was an extraordinary delight when I first went to the Maples of Lake Maria State Park in the fall of 2014 and wrote ” The Trees Were Glowing.” Every year since then, we find a Maple forest in which to bathe in the ethereal glow of the gilded leaves.

The day was cloudy, which made for a different kind of glow. No rays of sunlight danced on the leaves and slipped to the leaf-covered forest floor. The cloudy light was reflected back and forth from leaf to leaf like a humming song filling the air.

A relatively ‘young’ part of the forest had tall, straight-trunked trees, like a colossal choir dressed in robes of gold, swaying to the humming song.

Two large rocks at the base of two older-barked trees, along with a flexible, bent-over young Maple, created an alter of sorts. We pray for the souls of our loved ones.

With awe, we stood by the Grandmother and Grandfather Maples whose branches reached out wide and tall, proclaiming their time-honored wisdom. Like all elders, they deserve respect for all they have seen, all they have lived through, and all the hardships they have survived.

Pines shed a certain number of needles each fall, usually from the interior of the branches. Their winged pairs often get caught on other foliage, as do the bright-colored leaves.

We came to a clearing in the forest where Sumacs grew along the edges, happy in the more abundant sunshine. The deep red leaves are a sharp contrast to the golden Sugar Maple leaves. Sumacs are one of the first to change color, so by this time, many had already lost their leaves. But in contrast to most other shrubs and trees, they retain their striking brick-red seedheads throughout the winter.

The younger stems are fuzzy and pink, and after the leaves drop, look like arms raised in hallelujah!

Tucked into a little valley that protected the Sumac from leaf-dropping wind, was a spectacular display of a community of trees of all colors, sizes, and shapes! In the center of the fall color was an Eastern Red Cedar with a shine of gray-blue ‘berries’ (actually small cones) dusted on its branches.

We walked back into the forest where even an uprooted tree looked like a woodland sculpture with the background of golden leaves.

One part of the trail had beautiful red-leaved Maples that added to the color palette of our rustling footsteps.

Then before we left, the clouds broke away, and the sun flooded the golden cathedral with shimmering light!

Death was a swing and a miss this time around, thank the Good Lord, but all the feelings and sensations of uncertainty, compassion, love, loss, and grief took us on a roller-coaster ride. It’s funny how we are never quite prepared for it, even when we’ve been in similar circumstances before. It’s like the forest coming alive with golden light as the leaves are dying—life, death, and life again. We tend to take for granted the long Summer of green when all is well, then panic and wail a bit when leaves change and fall. Mother Nature has shown us time and time again that that is not the end of the story. As people of faith and mercy, we believe that, but as people of doubt and confusion, we constantly need reassurance that it will be so. So in the aftermath of such a roller-coaster of emotions, it is a healing balm to walk into the golden cathedral forest, to be surrounded and blessed by gilded light, and to raise our arms and hearts, along with the trees, in a humming song of Hallelujah.

Heartbreak and Beauty

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I had joyfully baked cookies all day—the old Christmas cds I used to play while making cookies with the kids blared from the hallway as the heady smells of sugar, butter, and chocolate filled the air. We were anticipating a trip to Kansas City to celebrate with the Brake family before taking the longer drive to Texas. We would leave in four days. Then a phone call. One of Chris’ brothers was in the ICU. It didn’t look good. Tests needed to be done. Unbeknownst to us, he had been ill for over a year, seriously ill—but didn’t want us to worry. If only cookies could heal heartbreak and cancer.

He died the day before we were leaving. We packed and drove with a heaviness that insulted the season of joy around us. Or was it the other way around? It seems like the only thing we could voice was our shock and disbelief. We spent a few days with the Brakes, in sorrow instead of excitement. And yet, seeing them, the remaining two brothers and their dear wives, placed a bandage over our wounds. In essence, it stopped the bleeding. We shared meals around the same tables the Brakes had gathered around for holiday fun for decades. Beautiful memories flooded my brain and heart. Gram and Gramps and the two uncles were still there with us.

We drove to Austin, Texas to see Emily and Shawn. The long trip was tiring. A dullness of unprocessed feelings kept us quiet, and sitting for so long in sorrow stiffened our muscles. Nothing like death to make a person feel old. We spent the night in Denton before braving the constant construction on I-35. One of our anticipated events with Emily and Shawn was to go on the Luminary Walk at Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Two days before Christmas—a festive event. I gathered my energy. Through the darkness we walked with luminaries lighting our way.

Chris noticed the real star above the lit tree. Darkness and beauty.

On the Luminary Walk, our eyes adjusted to the darkness. Our hearts began to adjust to the shock and sorrow. We saw kids playing on luminous swings, climbing structures, and mazes. We remembered the incredible fun and laughter Jon brought to all our lives. Lights illuminated certain trees that have lived long and endured many storms. Our memories highlighted the travails that Jon endured with strength and wit. We all walk the Luminary Walk through life. We encounter darkness—loss, heartache, hurt, confusion, and rejection—but there are luminaries all around us who can help us see through the heartbreak and darkness to find and feel the beauty once again.

Windows of Time

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I’ve had these windows of time in my life when much more was happening beyond the physical, conscious, daily occurrences. When I was younger, I was completely oblivious to them beyond a faint acknowledgement of not feeling so great. It could be in the form of physical discomfort or uneasiness or of a mental or emotional fatigue or depression. After a close friend of mine died when we were in our early 30’s, I had this window of ‘off’ time every year in early February. It was only after a number of years of this happening that I realized my ‘off’ time was the anniversary of his death and his birth. My body and mind were mourning the loss of my dear friend without my conscious knowledge. I ‘knew’ the anniversary of his death and birthday—a window of time of only a few days apart—in essence, without ‘knowing.’ Therein lies the incredible, miraculous marvel of our human bodies, minds, and souls.

Once I realized this connection, it made those times easier to handle. Of course I feel sad and down—I miss my friend, I loved him, and he was a joy to all who met him. The whole earth was missing a great soul who left far too early. That’s how important we each are in the whole of creation. The end of April and the beginning of May is another of those windows of time for me. It marks the deaths of Chris’ Mom and Dad who died two years and five days apart. Since I was intimately familiar with the anniversary mourning time, I used it proactively to set aside that time to honor them. I put pictures of them on our mantel, we recounted stories of them, and I ‘shared’ with them about our family. As the years passed—for now it has remarkably been sixteen and eighteen years since their deaths—the mourning morphed into a window of time of gratitude and peace. I still miss them and love them and carry them with me.

It was during this window of time when Chris and I walked at a nearby park. Our daily walks are usually faster—no tarrying for picture taking—but I took the camera in anticipation of a spectacular blooming. Good thing I did. The curled leaves of the Bloodroot flowers had opened up into a fan-tourage of magnificent flower display.

But the spectacular blooming I had anticipated was that of the White Trout Lily. From green and brown mottled, tulip-like leaves grows one exquisitely formed, curved, nodding, white flower with protruding yellow stamens and prominent white pistil.

They begin as a pink-colored bud that opens during the day and closes at night. The blooms last for just a few days, making it all the more magical to see them flowering.

The floodplain of this lowland by the Mississippi River was a carpet of White Trout Lilies—millions of them by my inexpert estimate. These colonies can be hundreds of years old, as it takes one plant six to seven years before a flower is produced. These early-flowering carpets serve as ‘nutrient pools’ for the entire forest. Without them, the spring run-off would take the nutrients with them, but instead the Trout Lilies take up nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. By mid-summer the leaves die back and release those nutrients for the vibrant summer growth. They remain dormant, underground, until the next early Spring.

As the White Trout Lilies bloomed, sedge grasses and ferns pushed and unfurled from the damp soil—green is once again the dominant color!

A couple of Anemones bloom at this early Spring time in Minnesota, including False Rue Anemone with its prolific, branching white flowers that seem to dance in the breeze.

A Canadian Goose pair ate and strutted in the back water of the River and gave no bother to us as we walked by.

The feathers of the impressive gander rippled like the water in which he walked.

Farther on, another goose was dipping its black bill into the shallow water, but when it saw and heard us, it turned and swam away, honking in alarm for long past the time we were in sight.

Tiny blue violets bloomed along the trail in sharp contrast to the leaf litter beneath it.

And then I saw the turtles! A large, fat-necked turtle sprawled over a log in the River slough water, legs hanging over the sides to balance him for a sun-soaked nap. Heads were raised when they heard us, but their concern was not great enough to scramble from their perches into the water.

Beside the log turtle was another on a large rock below. Reflections multiplied the logs, rocks, and turtles as a single, red Maple flower floated by.

The next set of turtles on a log made me laugh out loud. Another fat-necked turtle had a smaller, flatter turtle as a ‘pillow’ for his rest time, and behind him, two colorful sentries guarded the rear with their watchful neck maneuvers.

Another turtle trio of different sizes piled on a log with their eyes and noses in the air. Such funny creatures!

And finally, towards the end of our slow, beautiful, enchanting, funny walk, I saw this tree stump in the slough water. Moss was growing around the circumference of the bark-stripped trunk. Old, tan grass remained from the past, while new green grass was beginning to grow. A stick was propped up against the stump like someone had left a walking stick for another. Ripples and shadows and floating plants surrounded the stump, and in the middle of the stump grew a small, newly-leafed out tree in the freshest, most vibrant green!

We are the vibrant trees growing from the ones who came before us. They are the exquisitely blooming flowers who become our ‘nutrient pools’ who nourish us in our growth. The windows of time, those anniversaries of death or trauma that are remembered in our bodies, encoded into our brains, and carved into our souls, are there for a purpose. We are supposed to remember in order to transform the grief and pain into something of substance and form, of beauty and peace, so we can recognize how important we each are in the whole of creation. Take up your walking stick, give thanks for those loving souls who came before us, don’t get bogged down by the petty, muddled world around us, and find joy in fleeting flowers and sun-bathing turtles.

The World Beneath Our Feet

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Give me the man who will surrender the whole world for a moss or a caterpillar, and impracticable visions for a simple human delight.

The man who authored this quote was Bruce Frederick Cummings, born in England in 1889. He published a book of diary entries entitled The Journal of a Disappointed Man in 1919. That was also the year he died at the age of thirty from multiple sclerosis. It was only in 1915 when he was rejected from serving in World War I that he learned of his diagnosis and prognosis. Afterwards, he wrote eloquently of his struggle from his ‘naturalist at heart’ perspective. He wrote about his impending death:

To me the honour is sufficient of belonging to the universe — such a great universe, and so grand a scheme of things. Not even Death can rob me of that honour. For nothing can alter the fact that I have lived; I have been I, if for ever so short a time. And when I am dead, the matter which composes my body is indestructible—and eternal, so that come what may to my ‘Soul,’ my dust will always be going on, each separate atom of me playing its separate part — I shall still have some sort of a finger in the pie. When I am dead, you can boil me, burn me, drown me, scatter me — but you cannot destroy me: my little atoms would merely deride such heavy vengeance. Death can do no more than kill you.

It was because of the rain the day before that the world beneath our feet burst into a lush, colorful canvas. Last weekend’s rain was the first substantial Spring shower of the season, the one to wash away the accumulated grime from Winter’s melted snow piles and the one to anoint the dormant ground with Nature’s blessing. The first to respond to that blessing is an array of mosses and lichens that have been covered with snow most of the Winter. Without traditional plant structures like roots, stems, leaves, and flowers, they absorb water and nutrients like a sponge—plumping up, greening up, and livening up.

A bed of moss makes a desirable, protective seedbed for tiny new trees, helping to keep the ground moist for germination.

Since mosses and lichens have no roots or structures to transport water throughout their system, most grow close to the ground so as not to dry out. When a tree is ‘grounded,’ moss will soon overtake it.

Young saplings looked like they were wearing ‘mossy pants.’

Deer tracks dug into the soft, squishy carpet of rain-drenched moss.

Lime green Plume moss pushed aside the dark purple, rolled leaves of late Fall.

Mosses and lichens are an essential part of our ecosystem, absorbing carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

Little stars of Juniper moss twinkled among the Jack Pine needles.

The forest floor, that world beneath our feet, is a community of sticks, leaves, grasses, insects, mosses, seeds, bacteria, lichens, fungi, and others—all living and working together in a symbiotic relationship.

When mosses ‘bloom,’ they produce sporophyte stalks and spores—after the rain, they were already getting to the business of reproduction.

The ‘red coat’ protuberances of British Soldier lichens are eye-catching in the early Spring monochrome…

…as is this light green lichen on the dark wood of a Pine.

Waves of wispy grasses are matted against the moss from the weight of Winter’s snow.

But on this day after the rain, the rejuvenated moss prevails.

Glittering Wood moss—isn’t that the most magical name!?—crawls over a log.

A golden lichen, Reindeer moss (which is also a lichen), and Trumpet lichen are intricate pieces of art on the forest floor.

The world beneath our feet is often overlooked in the practicality of getting from one place to another and in the mundaneness of green and brown. It only takes a closer look to discover a world of infinite variety and exquisite artistry. We cannot abandon ‘impracticable visions’ or ‘the whole world’ in pursuit of a moss or a lichen, but a balancing of those extravagant, exuberant goals with a simple human delight will ground us in our humanity. What would be your pursuit if you knew your days were numbered? A year of a global pandemic and millions of lives lost and grieving should shake us to question that, just as Bruce Cummings did after learning of his prognosis. May the tiny Trumpet Lichens proclaim exultant victory over death, and may we all be anointed with Nature’s blessings. Amen.

Here in All Their Beauty–Then Gone

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Death has imbued my mind over the last week. It was the one year anniversary of Chris’ brother’s death, and I wonder how it can be so long already. It still feels unreal, like it didn’t happen, that maybe when we go back to Kansas City, he will be there. Then a dream of walking with my cousin through a garden adorned with art sculptures of cars, then realizing it was a cemetery for people who had died in car accidents. A dream of talking to my Dad at a party, and he died almost five years ago now. Then a brother of a friend of my daughter died in his mid-30’s—so, so young. And that makes me remember with a heavy heart the death of one of my greatest friends who died at the age of 34. We worked together at church camp on the prairies of South Dakota, and we took an epic horseback ride across the state from the North Dakota border to the Nebraska border. We both loved the prairie.

We come and go, but the land will always be here. Those people who love and understand it are the only ones who really own it—for a while. –Willa Cather

Last weekend Chris and I went to Buffalo River State Park, one of the largest and best of Minnesota’s prairie preserves. Our main idea was to foil the mosquitoes who have been swarming us in the woods and go to the sunny, wind-swept prairie where mosquitoes are less likely to bother us. And then there’s the thing that happens to my soul when I face an expanse of grass and sky—I am filled with goodness and calm.

Side by side we walked the mowed path through the prairie. Occasionally there would be an erratic boulder lying amidst the grass, boulders that were deposited there by the glacier eons ago. And they are literally called ‘erratics.’

I thought it looked like a prairie gravestone.

There’s no great loss without some small gain. –Laura Ingalls Wilder

The park was actually a combination of the State Park prairie, the Bluestem Prairie Scientific and Natural Area, and Minnesota State University, Moorehead Regional Science Center Land, and through the middle of it all flowed the winding, tree-lined Buffalo River. A vast expanse of blooming Indian grass with a sweep of Little Bluestem stretched from the path to the Science Center.

Sunflowers and Liatris sprinkled the prairie with bright summer color, and Painted Lady Butterflies were everywhere!

They are here in all their beauty…

…then gone.

The ones we lose eventually fade into the background of our lives, yet they are with us always.

At times, with anniversaries, or dreams, or renewed memories, they feel much closer to us again—thus the nature of erratic, unpredictable grief.

Death is not far from anybody’s mind these days as the death count from Covid-19 ticks into the hundreds of thousands—if you are not one who is personally impacted by that, thank your lucky stars and kindly say a prayer for all those who are. Please don’t quibble about the Covid count being ‘wrong.’ A beautiful person was here, and then they were gone, and many people are mourning.

We have the people, things, and land we love only for a while—until their demise, or ours. It will soon be thirty years since my friend died. Many things remind me of him—Appaloosa horses, polka-dot hats, strumming wildly on the guitar and singing silly songs, and so many more. But being on the prairie always brings him closer to me again. I have shared this poem about the prairie within the last year—what I didn’t say before was that it was my friend Joe’s favorite. The land will always be here. May it bring you goodness and calm.

The prairie, these plains….It was as if nature had taken solitude and fashioned it into something visible, carved out the silences into distances, into short grass forever flowing and curving, a vast sky forever pressing down, nothing changing, nothing but sameness, day after day after day, as far as you could see, as far as you could go. It was like the solitude of God…as awesome, and as beautiful. –Janice Holt Giles

The Day it Snowed in July

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The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. –John Muir

This post is not about clarity or the forest, and I am backing us up in time to the middle of July. The hot, humid middle of July. We had just gotten back from our trip to Missouri, Chris was back to work, and I was desperate to get away from some overarching, insistent, persistent bad feelings. Hot, humid weather never makes anything better, in my opinion; in fact, it magnifies madness, swells cells, and creates chaos. I walked down the road to the little lake on Hummingbird Lane. I don’t even remember how bad the mosquitoes and deer flies were as I sweated up the hill. And then as I saw the usually-pretty lake, I was even more disgusted when I saw how the vegetative scum had overtaken the open water.

It is at times like these when we need and crave some clear reflection of reality. Why is all this crap in the way? The reason for our trip to Missouri was to spend time with Chris’ brother Paul who was dying of pancreatic cancer. This brother who was just two years older, the one who played in dirt piles with him, went to Boy Scouts camp, and drove him to high school. We watched some Big Valley on TV, walked to get the long-neglected mail for him, got an Icee that cooled his throat, and cleaned up the kitchen a little bit. Paul joked about it all with his dry one-liners, and we laughed. It was as good and normal as ever, even as we talked about end-of-life things. The brothers reminisced about boyhood memories, and Paul held his arm over his stomach and rocked ever-so-slightly.

As we sat together, there were layers of feelings—fresh in-the-moment ones, surface take-care-of-business ones, deep, dark feelings about what was to come, and a forest of sweet memories.

I had listened to a Rob Bell podcast where he talked about the struggles and irritations in our lives, and I had written a line he said on a post-it note where I could see it every day. “This is all part of it.” This is all part of it. This pond scum is part of a hot July summer. The mosquitoes and deer flies are a part of a still, humid day. Dying is part of living. We can look a little closer at what clouds our vision, what’s getting in the way of our clear reflection. The Duckweed is actually kind of pretty close up, and do you see the three damselflies who live and fly above the Duckweed?

The flat, floating Yellow Pond Lily leaves send up surprising stalks of flowers. How did I miss them before? This is all part of it.

The intricate cluster of pink balls to open stars of the Milkweed flower housed ants and a tiny caterpillar. This is all part of it. It was a comforting mantra for my nervous body and unsettled soul.

And then, as I walked home in the July heat and humidity, it started to snow! Out of the blue sky drifted snowflakes—snowflakes of Cottonwood seeds. It was somewhat of a miracle to me—‘snow’ in July!

A month and a day after the snow in July, Paul passed from this world. He and his dear family caregivers had a week of the very serious business of dying. I can’t even imagine, though we waited for texted updates and prayed for…. oh my gosh, the things we prayed for changed as the week went on. On Sunday, it would have been ‘easy.’ Each night after that, we wondered how he was holding on, why he was holding on, who he was holding on for. I have so much respect and honor for our family members who were by his side every hour of that long week. But from my distance, it struck me like a lightning bolt that Paul’s dying wasn’t only about his letting go, seeing people one more time, saying and hearing the words that would never be said or heard again, and holding on for whatever reason—it was about us all. We are all part of it. Everybody who loved him and who he loved was a part of his dying. We all longed to see certain faces, say certain words, take away pain, if only we could, pass on peace, and change the way we do certain things in our lives. What did each of us need to let go of, say or hear said, promise to ourselves and God? How did I not notice that before? What is getting in the way? What is really important in this life? The last time I saw Paul, I kissed the top of his bald head, he said, “See you later,” and we smiled. Exquisite grace, precious moment. Snow in July is a miracle. Life is a miracle. Death is a miracle. We went through the wilderness of dying with Paul to get to the Universe of Love. All the while God is holding us all in the palm of his hand and smiling. This is all part of it.