I wrote this about 4 years ago:
We were in a canoe paddling towards the middle of the lake. The sky and water was blue as the blue in a Maxfield Parrish painting. I looked down and it seemed I could see forever into the depths of the lake. And I wondered … What would it be like to lose something … Something of great value … Right here in the middle of the lake? What would it be like if my wedding band slipped off my finger into the lake?
It would be lost the moment it hit the water.
Even if I immediately dove in after the ring it would sink faster and deeper than I could swim. But I would be able to clearly see it as it sank … for a long time. That’s the terrible part. To see it fall away with absolute clarity … sunlight glinting off the gold as it rapidly receded farther and further into the depths … finally passing deeper than light can penetrate … and then … wink out of existence.
Lost.
As we paddled back to shore a small wave of sadness hit. Not about the hypothetical loss of a ring … but about all the things we’ve lost … clearly lost … things that are quickly receding into an irrevocable irretrievable past.
Yeah. Those are the kinds of happy bunny thoughts I have when we’re on vacation. Imagine what’s banging around inside my head when I’m stuck in my room reading the news.
What triggered the hypothetical loss of my ring while paddling my wife and son across Lake Crescent was thinking about the then upcoming 47th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s murder. Again … who thinks about assassinations in the middle of Nature’s Grandeur? And why?