i was born and raised in a tiny town on a big river; just me and my dad, then the two of us and my grandma, then just the two of us again. we spent days and nights at that river, talking and fishing. hours spent sitting in the low hum of the cicadas, the breeze carrying the whispers of the leaves, the splash of an insect skidding across the surface of water and becoming the lunch of a small mouth bass. my dad brought me to mother nature, kindled the bond between she and i.
the drought hit, a year with little to no rain - then two, then three. the once rushing river slowed day by day until it had finally come to a halt. i was still a kid, mourning the entity i had created and assigned to this one chunk of nature. i remember the sadness i felt for her - she was just so tired. the first time we visited after she became still, i could feel the exhaustion before i could see it. the air was thick, heavy, and far too quiet; i felt it deep in my chest. my dad cringed at the sight of the bright green water, filled with algae. to me, there was a different kind of beauty in her dormancy. the algae crept up the riverbank, coating the roots and stones in its path. her unique shade of green was breathtaking, glowing in the direct sunlight. i decided that day that even the defeated can be beautiful, that there is no grief in rest, that the time spent healing is not lost time.
then, the trees along her bank began to die. they depended on her for the flow of fresh water - in her rest, they fell. i remember the particularly large tree that fell across the field beside her. this, i knew, was death. i grieved for this tree, he had been here decades before me and i would continue decades after his fall. i lay my hand against its bark, running my fingers along and between its ridges. i pondered what the death of a tree truly means. this tree was standing a week ago. how many cells within him were still alive, unaware that the rot is closing in?
i have always given great consideration to firsts and to lasts. logically, there is always a first and a last, albeit many more firsts than lasts. just as there was a first cell of growth decades prior when he had first sprouted; there had to be a last cell to die within him, the last light to finally go out. how long did it take from the moment the river stopped flowing until enough of him had died that he could not bear to stand any longer? was there a final cell to die that finally caused his base to give way? if there was a switch i could flip to send the water flowing through her again, when would have been “soon enough” to bring him back, to keep him standing?
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