At the bottom of the hill where my Dad’s ashes are interred, I always stop to get whatever bearings I might locate. It is the pause before the visit. Here is where I will get out of the car and walk to the edge of where the manicured grass meets the barbed wire fence where a more wild and untamed section of land begins. It is a wet space, damp enough year-round for cattails to grow and flourish. On this gray day in early February, I walk through a muddy mess just barely speckled with snow. The ground is uncharacteristically soft, the grass gives way beneath my feet and there are mounds of spongy moss lending a gentleness to my steps. Seeking some sign of my Dad, I wait and listen, then hear the running water.
A little stream, hidden at other times of the year by foliage and brush, gurgles ever so quietly, the running water like a set of barely-audible chimes carried on the wind. A sign of spring. A sign of hope. Water and land – movable and immovable – constant and inconstant. I hadn’t noticed it before. Maybe the water wasn’t running the previous times I’ve been here. Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it. On this day, I am listening, and the sound of the water is soothing.
