“Let’s be quiet like Indians,” Ben squeals, turning to flash me a gapped-tooth grin from the front seat of our two-man kayak and spinning back around to concentrate on skimming the surface of the water with his double-bladed oars. I gaze at the back of his colorful hat and the fringe of his smooth corn silk hair beneath the hat’s wide brim. His head is still as he concentrates on paddling. My heart squeezes. Time alone with my youngest son is rare and precious.
Leaving small, silent whirlpools, I carefully slice and pull at the gentle river. Water drips from my paddle cooling my bare legs, stretched in the boat’s open bow on one of the first truly warm summer days of a cool and wet June. My skin absorbs the sun like a solar panel, attempting to store its rays for the long season of snow and ice, never too distant in Michigan.
The subtle smell of dry cedar wafts across the river mixing with the mustiness of mud, and hanging in the humid air. From the shadows of the forest, green spills down the riverbanks. Ferns, moss and grass crawl atop fallen logs that jut into the sparkling waters. The reflections of puffy white clouds in a blue sky float across the river.
“Look, Mom, a dragonfly! Oh, Mama, a fish!”
“Cool, Ben!”
Like the soaking up of the sun’s rays, I try to absorb the wonder and excitement that is Ben at six years old, knowing how quickly life can change from one season to the next.
**********
Ben was 1 ½ the humid August day in 2006 when I returned from the grocery store to find his father, my husband, Doug, sitting motionless at the edge of the couch, his long forearms on his knees in tense concentration as he stared at the carpeting.
“I don’t feel good.”
“What’s wrong?”
I set the grocery bags at the top of the short flight of stairs that led into our split level home and walked past the three squealing boys dashing about the living room. As I neared the couch, Doug raised his face to me and I felt the flesh melt from my body and pool at my feet, my nerves tingling to attention.
Doug’s skin was the color of cement, a shade that brought to mind words like “ashen” and “pallor”, words that I had read but never seen, a sickly gray that demanded action.
Nothing had prepared me for this sudden change in Doug’s appearance. Less than two hours before, I had left for a leisurely trip to the grocery store without my usual posse of two preschoolers and a toddler while Doug took the boys to the hardware store to buy a few things for our on-going home renovations and to indulge our sons in their newest obsession: tools.
Doug’s patience was a perfect match for the plodding and distracted pace of three young boys, and I could imagine him that morning following the boys from aisle to aisle as they ogled and handled each hammer, screwdriver and wrench, chatting with them about the uses for each tool and sending them into fits of wiggles and squeals at the sight of a chainsaw or power drill until, without warning, a wave of nausea washed over him and a persistent pain settled into his left shoulder.
Months later, Doug would show me the receipt from that day at the hardware store.
“Why do you keep that?”
“I don’t know.”
Then, careful not to tear or wrinkle the thin slip of paper, he would return it to his battered wallet like a precious souvenir.
**********
Having forgotten about the “quiet-like-Indians game,” Ben now drags his hand through the shallow water, searching the river bottom for a treasure. I think about Doug’s wallet, the date and time fading like a memory, and I realize that I cannot store this moment with Ben any more than I can archive the sun. “Just enjoy it,” I think to myself as our kayak follows the predictable curves of the river past cattails and dragonflies.
Leaving small, silent whirlpools, I carefully slice and pull at the gentle river. Water drips from my paddle cooling my bare legs, stretched in the boat’s open bow on one of the first truly warm summer days of a cool and wet June. My skin absorbs the sun like a solar panel, attempting to store its rays for the long season of snow and ice, never too distant in Michigan.
The subtle smell of dry cedar wafts across the river mixing with the mustiness of mud, and hanging in the humid air. From the shadows of the forest, green spills down the riverbanks. Ferns, moss and grass crawl atop fallen logs that jut into the sparkling waters. The reflections of puffy white clouds in a blue sky float across the river.
“Look, Mom, a dragonfly! Oh, Mama, a fish!”
“Cool, Ben!”
Like the soaking up of the sun’s rays, I try to absorb the wonder and excitement that is Ben at six years old, knowing how quickly life can change from one season to the next.
**********
Ben was 1 ½ the humid August day in 2006 when I returned from the grocery store to find his father, my husband, Doug, sitting motionless at the edge of the couch, his long forearms on his knees in tense concentration as he stared at the carpeting.
“I don’t feel good.”
“What’s wrong?”
I set the grocery bags at the top of the short flight of stairs that led into our split level home and walked past the three squealing boys dashing about the living room. As I neared the couch, Doug raised his face to me and I felt the flesh melt from my body and pool at my feet, my nerves tingling to attention.
Doug’s skin was the color of cement, a shade that brought to mind words like “ashen” and “pallor”, words that I had read but never seen, a sickly gray that demanded action.
Nothing had prepared me for this sudden change in Doug’s appearance. Less than two hours before, I had left for a leisurely trip to the grocery store without my usual posse of two preschoolers and a toddler while Doug took the boys to the hardware store to buy a few things for our on-going home renovations and to indulge our sons in their newest obsession: tools.
Doug’s patience was a perfect match for the plodding and distracted pace of three young boys, and I could imagine him that morning following the boys from aisle to aisle as they ogled and handled each hammer, screwdriver and wrench, chatting with them about the uses for each tool and sending them into fits of wiggles and squeals at the sight of a chainsaw or power drill until, without warning, a wave of nausea washed over him and a persistent pain settled into his left shoulder.
Months later, Doug would show me the receipt from that day at the hardware store.
“Why do you keep that?”
“I don’t know.”
Then, careful not to tear or wrinkle the thin slip of paper, he would return it to his battered wallet like a precious souvenir.
**********
Having forgotten about the “quiet-like-Indians game,” Ben now drags his hand through the shallow water, searching the river bottom for a treasure. I think about Doug’s wallet, the date and time fading like a memory, and I realize that I cannot store this moment with Ben any more than I can archive the sun. “Just enjoy it,” I think to myself as our kayak follows the predictable curves of the river past cattails and dragonflies.
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