Thought of July

Cindy's flowers

The month of July is drawing to a close.  It is a time where Cindy is very much on my mind.  On her birthday, I hiked through Blandford Nature Center with a friend.  Cindy and I enjoyed nature walks and it was a good way to remember her on her special day.  The center has changed since we were last there together.  I wish she could see it.

A week later I was kayaking again, introducing a friend to Wabasis Lake - a large local lake that has fun places to explore hidden among the reeds.  Cindy and I discovered kayaking together and we really enjoyed it through the years.  I hadn’t been on the water for two years - she had become too weak to paddle and I just wanted to stay available to her.  Last summer, it felt disloyal to take my boat out when she could barely walk.  So my kayak hung on the garage wall until last week.

The flowers Cindy had given me for my garden bloom in July.  They are a beautiful reminder of our friendship.

This has not been a great year and in some ways I’m glad she didn’t live to see the pandemic, the brutality, the national strife…but I will always miss her and July will always bring her to mind.

Mary Oliver was one of her favorite poets.  I’ll leave you with this poem that she read at a friend’s funeral a few months before her own.


The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
​with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver

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