Speaking with my mother on the phone she tells me that my father thinks they should send condolences to a former co-worker of his whose father died.
“Who was it?” I ask.
And in her answer I am suddenly flashed back to several beautiful, recent encounters with the gentleman of her reply on the trail near our home.
“But he was well and trail walking just days ago.” I stammered. “We saw both he and his wife out walking together in the woods.”
My father’s former co-worker was a daughter of the man, a neighbor of ours, who died suddenly last week; her youngest son, a childhood friend of our son’s.
Both family and community connections abound between this family and ours and although I had spoken a great many times with the daughter, grandson and wife of the gentleman who passed away, until recently I had somehow never spoken with him.
There we were at the entrance to the trail. They were leaving and heading back to their home which borders on the park in front of the woods, and my family and I were just entering. It was almost Christmas and the circuit breaker was in effect here. They stopped to cheerfully greet us.
“Beautiful day for a walk!” she said grinning.
We agreed and I said something about it being nice to be able to get out and do something as a family while increased restrictions were in place.
“Wonderful indeed!” they both smiled and we offered well wishes for the holidays and were off.
Soon thereafter, another trail encounter found us mid-woods and stepping off into the low growth of evergreens to make way for them to pass by us on the narrow trail. Their greetings then, were just as cheerful as the other time.
We commented to ourselves on how vibrant this elderly couple looked as they walked the root- covered, woodland trail together.
A thick white haired, tall and sturdy looking man, he and his beautiful wife both had such wide, happy smiles, radiating an easy warmth into the cool, snow covered woods; a warmth which instantly entered into us as well.
This couple, in their eighties, were out walking along the trails they frequented just enjoying life in much the same way as we were.
Like us and the woodland creatures we encounter, all beautiful creatures of Earth enjoying the forest trails.
The last time I saw them was a week or so ago and just days before he suddenly passed away.
Their backs were to us, she had a walking stick in her right hand and her left arm was hooked into the crook of her husbands, as they walked arm in arm up the road from the trail to their home. There was something so heartwarming in their gentle, supportive embrace of each other.
This was the image I returned to when my mother told me of his passing. An image of enduring love and caring.
On my return to the trail behind their home the day after I learned of the gentleman’s death, there was a flock of thirty Mourning Doves perched on the wire across from their house.
Mourning Doves are inclined to mate for life. This couple had celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary in the summer of 2020.
I learned this by reading his heartwarming obituary. The man was a kindred spirit of my own heart who heard the exquisite music of the natural world all around him. He was his own family’s purveyor of natural enchantment.
He taught his children to create an orchestra from the natural world, whether it was percussion with the bones and spoons, whistling himself or whistles made of Alder branches for the wind section, or blades of grass blown between thumbs forming the reed section. He showed us music was everywhere, we just had to be open to the possibilities around us.
It made me wish I'd known him. I almost felt I did.
A few days after this all came to pass we were in the woods on the snow covered trail when we noticed ocher red spots on the snow. Further along, more drops, where we would normally see an abundance of snowshoe hare tracks. Larger, more, until they stepped off trail into the brush- filled belly of the little woods.
Alarmed, we wanted to head off trail to follow the path of red drops but we thought better of it. There are moments in the forest, like in our own lives, where death comes unexpected and swift and we are taken by currents beyond our powers.
And as much as we do not want to think that one of the gorgeous, Snowshoe Hares we watched change colour this past autumn and with whom we spent many an enjoyable summer evening watching them munch trailside in the long grasses by the gravel road, the evidence pointing to the demise of one of them by some sizable predator was simply too great to deny.
Breathing in grief and wishing wellness and peace to the family who lost their twinkle-eyed father and grandfather, helps me remember to hold those in my own life with an abundance of care.
The meandering iron- saturated drops of some beautiful, wild creature’s life force, a startling reminder on the snow that as much as we try to control and protect ourselves and our loved ones from harm, harm sometimes comes and as in the forest, it is part of an inescapable process of life and death and life of which we are all a part.
The most loving part of me, which without even knowing him, loves the man who passed away and his family too, also loves wild creatures and the natural world with the same kind of abandon. It makes no sense at all to feel love so far flung, deep and wide and yet it is the most vivid kind of alive, love feeling, I've ever felt. Freed from encumbrances, my heart is wide open to empathy and bears a deeply held, desire for the wellness of all beings the whole world over; the whole, pulsing natural world included.
I close by wishing you an awareness of the tenderness of your own heart in this world of living and dying, of wonder and of sorrow. I welcome you to be truly present to the wild dance of it all, allowing it to crack your very human heart wide open to love.
A friend shared a phrase recently: Love fiercely, for this all ends.
While change is an undeniable constant and much can be debated on the end-ness vs continuation of things post-death, choosing love as an undercurrent to it all helps to keep our hearts soft in a world bent on hardening them.
Wishing you caring, wishing you presence, wishing you ease.
Be well,
Thanks for reading!
Jill