Unbounded Joy

Our family lives in the city. This was not always so. We knew a different life, enmeshed in the cycles of the year on the land, whose bounty provided for the sustenance of body and spirit. Now, we fight traffic and schedules to scavenge for our daily bread. Our meals together give us a brief reprise and soulful nourishment, but all too often our activities drive some of us to our cars again before the others have barely arrived home.

Grief over all that we left behind in the country often simmers under the surface of our family dynamics. We find our deeper connections to each other and to life when we flee the city to be in nature together.

The second summer after Nina died was an empty and desolate time. While inwardly experiencing transformation of our loss, we were in desperate need of something to speak to us from the outer world, of finding it a safe place to live in again. Kevin, now 17, was away on adventures of his own. With nothing calling us to travel afar for our vacation, Dennis, Soren, and I went on several camping trips in Minnesota. In August, we drove over three hours to a state park on the north shore of Lake Superior.

We set up our campsite and went out walking on the huge rocks jutting out from the shore, watching the sunset over the lake. After a quick rainstorm, we returned to the campsite and bedded down for a peaceful night in our tent. We felt lucky to be in such a beautiful spot.

In the morning we got a different impression of our campsite. Anytime we brought food out, bees descended furiously, making it impossible to eat. We packed snacks and lunch, put on swimsuits under our clothes, attached fishing poles to our backpacks, and started hiking. We were prepared for adventure.

We followed a trail to the river, and then lazily made our way upstream, hopping from boulder to boulder. After about two hours of this relaxed sort of hiking (which six-year-old Soren loved), the boulders started disappearing, so we followed the path along the side of the river. Then we heard the roar of a waterfall. We came upon it from above. It was not just one waterfall; there were several cascades plunging down the enormous boulders, here in a widespread fan, there in a narrow channel.

We actually climbed down the boulders to the bottom of the falls. And there we discovered a person-sized waterfall, reachable from the edge, with smooth boulders lining the bottom. We were warm enough that the water looked inviting. All we needed to do was take off our clothes. Something pulled me out of my normally cautious self, and when Dennis looked at me, I said, “I’m going to do it!”

When the three of us got under that pounding falls and looked up at the water heedlessly and endlessly falling down upon us, all we could do was laugh. All we could feel was joy. My husband, my son, and I laughed and laughed in that waterfall. And when we had enough, we returned to the edge and sat on the rocks in our bathing suits, quietly absorbing the warmth of the sun, letting the joy sink deep into our hearts.

We all knew that it was not just the three of us there. Another presence was wafting through the air, the light, the roar, the mist, permeating every cell of our beings. Dennis finally gave words to it: Nina was smiling down on us from the top of the waterfall.

No one else came to the waterfall. On our way back down the river, we only saw one family. Had other people been around, we could never have experienced the waterfall as we did. In those brief moments of unbounded joy, we felt securely surrounded by nature imbued with Spirit. Yes, it was still possible to find a place in the natural world that was sacred.

That affirmation filled me to overflowing. I knew that our shining spirit-child guided us to that waterfall, gave us the courage to cross the threshold, and helped us to feel again the joy of existence.