On my way

I walked for hours. Until I couldn't feel my feet. Until I couldn't feel the blisters borne of worn-out threads that once held. I walk until my soles weep, and my soul shakes, and I shuddered to think. I walk until I convince myself I can no longer feel my heart shattering, even as the last shards of winter's light fall to the forest floor, a dizzying array of starlight pooling at my feet.

I stop because I have to. How is it possible, to miss someone so much?

I fall to my knees, heavily sinking into the forest's softness, burying my exhaustion into her welcoming bosom. I work my sloppy eyes, investigating the darkness, searching earth's knitted blanket as it tussles beneath my foolish frame. I am lost amid fallen fragments, leaves and cones and needles, moss and twigs, and broken branches.

I feel safe here. Alone, without you, but safe. I am at one with the lost. Nestled within the caress of giant ferns and a maze of swaying grasses, I stargaze at dots and dashes of light well beyond my grasp.

I burrow my hands deep into my jacket pockets--the very hands that held yours every time you needed me, just the same as yours held mine. We'd been everything to each other since we were knee high to a grasshopper. Best friends. Now these foolish hands settle for lint and a safe place to hide.

I cannot bear to see what path has befallen me. Not that it matters. Little matters anymore. You aren't here.

This place feels familiar and yet looks like no place I've ever been.

I find myself in a clearing. Beneath a cold sky I lift eyes to see your favorite trees. Centurion weeping willows, sacred soldiers. They stand together, shoulder to shoulder, holding ground in taut lines saluting a river that runs amuck, twisting into banks and cornering bends, meandering through the heart of this land.

They count in the millions, the weeping willows. And I'd give every last one of them to have you back again.

Even now, your voice sings me to sleep. The sweetest lullaby comforts me and I begin to drift, light as wood washed away by water. The river rushes by, carrying what dreams your voice leads me to imagine.

I know this tune!

We sang it together, once upon a time, when we were young and full of life and finding ourselves fast friends, having the best of times on the banks of the riverbed. Summer camp stretched out forever before our ratty old tent—and we became tent mates for the summer!—along the shores of the Rappahannock, where the Rappahannock meets the James.

I remember. The camp counselors taught that song to us.

This night, I hear you sing it to me, as time descends and I find respite. I remember how we giggled as girls, making s'more, telling ghost stories, whispering secrets, holding them like gemstones in our small hands, casting shadow puppet wolves, laughing with our whole hearts.

Back then everything was easy and simple, and true, and we had each other--

s--n--n--a--a--a--p--p--p!!!

I jump, startled by a noise! What is that? The ground rumbles, close as breath against my perspiring neck. I feel eyes on my flesh!

"Who's there? You're frightening me. Please, come out. State your business."

"I apologize for the intrusion." He speaks. A weeping willow speaks.

"It is not my intention to frighten you," he continues. He uses my language, speaks inside my thoughts. "I take this form to offer comfort, that you might feel at ease."

He sighs heavily before continuing. "I am here," he hesitates, "for you."

His bark shimmers, glowing bright as the north star. His face is grandfatherly, his countenance, a certain patience I recall. His eyes are kind, his hands gentle.

I try to speak, to make sentences, to comprehend. But I cannot. I'm at a loss. "I---I don't understand."

"No, no. Not to worry. That's why I'm here."

"Here? What's happening? How can you talk?" I lift myself and pace, not caring for the pain that burns from blisters. "Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming." My mind races. "Is Olivia with you?"

"Olivia is home. With her family." The willow smiles. "You are here." His voice is raspy. He clears his throat to ask, "Could you bear with me a moment?"

When I nod, he walks, roots and all, over to the river. His lowest branches scoop up two large mouthfuls, and he shakes his considerable canopy with tremendous satisfaction. "Ah," he sighs, returning to my side.

"Olivia is home, with her husband."

"Her husband? But Olivia doesn't have a husband!" I slide my anger behind my hands, hoping he doesn't leave.

"Time passes differently here."

"Where is here? I mean, what is here?"

The willow settles his trunk into a more comfortable position as he ponders. He interlaces his roots, sitting cross-legged, sort of smiling. There's a wistful sincerity in him I find disarming. "Here is now. Now is fleeting. You are safe. With me. With us."

"Who is us? And what does it mean, here is fleeting? I'm so confused." I thump back into a seated position, unintentionally copying his body language, newly tapping an agitated foot against a little pile of leaves. "Please, tell me, where is Olivia?!" My patience is reaching an end.

"What do you know of the forest, Sylvia? What's the last thing you can remember?"

I'm jolted. The willow knows my name. I begin to answer him as if I have already made the choice to spill my life into his trust, as if we share thoughts. "I remember the forest from childhood. From that summer, the one my family spent camping along the James. I was 12. From then on, it was me and Olivia. BFFs. Best friends forever. I remember Olivia and me climbing trees and scrapping our knees and promising to keep each other's secrets. We swore to take our secrets to the grave."

"That's very good. You are doing so well. Please, keep trying to remember. If you get thirsty, drink from the river. It will sustain you."

"Oh, no!" I scream. "I remember feeling Olivia leaving me. In the kitchen. My kitchen. We are older, not old, but not young anymore. I remember her hands softly squeezing mine. Such love, so much warmth. Her hands clasp tightly round mine. And that sound -- that awful sound!"

"You are safe here, child. Nothing can hurt you, not even the memory of what happened."

"Is Olivia okay? I don't remember her having a husband. Olivia isn't even out of college yet. Is she? She has BioChem and I have Engl--"

"Time moves differently here. I know it's difficult. Can you remember the day you graduated? Olivia as salutatorian? And you, her biggest champion, cheering loudly from the fourth row? She felt your support. You gave her reason to dream ever bigger."

"How do you know that?"

"We are The Guardians. We have watched over the earth for millennia. Your grandparents, and their grandparents, and their grandparents' grandparents came to us. Together, we walked this earth. We showed them the path. We taught them how to take the next step."

"The next step?" Suddenly I see it. All I need to know--all I have searched for--unfolds in a split second. It's a blink at once fleeting and infinite.

I see a lifetime of choices flitting past: places, faces, decisions, regrets. The beauty. The heartbreak. The loss. My loss.

My child! My sweet baby girl. I named her after my best friend. We called her Liv. I had a husband. The best husband. He loved me so much, truly, deeply, passionately. And I adored him.

Olivia, she has a husband, too. I remember now. Our men were college roommates, hers and mine. We're going to have children at the same time. I'm pregnant. I was---"

The weeping willow bends his head, sheds a flutter of leaves. Each falls at my feet, creating a circle, blessing me, rooting me, giving me strength and light, and tremendous understanding. A genuine comfort begins to fill a void I'd brushed aside and told myself I never had.

"Where is she? My daughter. My Liv?"

"The better question is," and he says this with such tenderness, "Where are you? Can you breath into the last moments? The final memories?"

I sit upright, not looking at the tree, and also averting my eyes from the watchful stars.

"Yes," I answer, feeling serenity wash over me--as if the river were cleansing my soul. I settle into myself, realizing this self is taking on the aspects of a tree. A willow tree. And I feel grounded.

I ask without hesitation or fear. "Who am I?"

"You are you. The you who is due to arrive at the Whispering Woods. You are the you who is on this path. To the next life."

I thought I'd feel fear, loneliness, bitterness, anger. I felt certain there'd be emptiness. Pain or isolation. But I feel none of that. Instead, I feel comforted. Understood. Welcomed. Home.

I feel an ache for what I've left behind, but also a new and tranquil certainty. I feel it in my roots: I've done what I had to do.

"You are my ancestors, aren't you? All of them, rooted together, twisted into one." I realize what I've known all along.

"Yes."

"You are here to walk with me, into the next world."

"Yes."

"Olivia is happy, and loved. Protected and safe. She has a beautiful life with Joey and the children. My beloved Jason, he's there, too, taking excellent care of Olivia and Joey and their brood, watching over them. And my girl, my sweet girl, Liv, she is here, waiting for me. Made whole by the waters of the river. She dwells among the branches of our family tree, as we do now. I see it. All the ones we love find us here, in the forest, when the time comes. In the Whispering Woods."

"Yes."

"Please, tell me they don't think I chose to leave them now, do they? They mustn't think that. I never wanted to leave them..."

"They know what they need to know. In time, they will know all that can be known, as you now know."

He bent toward me, a champion bowed before a newly knighted sister in arms. I climb his mighty branches, his roots intertwining with mine, roots stretching into the ground as my arms climb higher.

I take a dangerous but effective route into the sky, climbing, becoming one with the great willow. Each foothold comes to me as if I'd climbed these limbs a thousand times.

When I reach the top of his magnificent canopy, I see everything. Clearly. With eyes wide open, seeing, sensing, hearing, feeling, knowing, and believing, too. Mine has become a heart large enough to swallow the world's pain. And so I begin to drink it all in. And as I drink, the river swells, cutting new paths into the earth.

At last I understand.

I feel my bark thickening, my sap swelling, my canopy filling in. I tickle the night sky with my longest branches and know my reach extends beyond limits.

I am home. And I am on my way.

***

Copyright © 04/02/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.

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