Don Miller is doing fine. Some read into the Rock River Times column he wrote a few weeks that he was ill. Aside from the usual aches and pains, Don is A-OK.
His column is about a dear friend, who was diagnosed with cancer. He didn’t know if they’d ever get the chance to float the Kishwaukee River again so he floated the river with her in his mind, recording his thoughts in a wonderful piece that must be posted so you can read it.
This is as it appeared in the Rock River Times’ May 21-27, 2008, issue.
by Don Miller
It has been weeks since the doctor told you the cancer you had was terminal. Your memory isn’t of the conversation of that day, but of the family being by your side and the hugs and warmth of the room. There is no time to waste; in short time, you develop your “bucket” list.
One of the things you would like to do before the end is to float the Kishwaukee River one more time. That day comes, and we put in at the canoe landing at the Kish River Forest Preserve, our destination to be Atwood Park. The river is as you remember-clear, swift and cool. You don’t care what that Miller guy says, the Indian translation of Kishwaukee is “clear waters,” and not “sycamore trees.” You are not going to paddle. Mentally, you find yourself somewhere in between wanting it all to come to an end quickly and going slowly to have the time to say goodbye to all the people and places you have loved. The current sweeps you—and your thoughts—downstream.
You have always found the rocky wall of rapids just down river from the put-in a little unnerving. However, this time, the canoe slits the “V” without you even thinking of spilling. A kingfisher chatters to you from a low branch hanging above the water’s surface. Then, she lifts off her perch and heads down river, the river guide. Does she know what is at the end of this float? At the end of her flight? Freedom.
Families on the grassy banks are watching the river flow. You pass them by and hold your hand high, and face your palm open toward them: the sign of friendliness and peace. The people respond and then grow smaller, until they vanish out of sight. At the end of the boundary of the forest preserve, the river takes almost a 90-degree right turn, heading west into a sinking sun. You squint to the bank on the south, and you see the sign, “Fran’s Bend.” You smile a Mona Lisa-like smile. Behind the half grin you know there will come a time the sign may have little meaning to most; but for those few, there will always be a special memory.
Passing by Rotary Forest Preserve in the late spring, one can still see all the way through the woods. Everything is exposed, nothing can hide. The area has a green cast to the forest floor and trees, the hope of a coming spring. How many of them have you seen? This is the best of them. You hear the shrill “whoo-eek, whoo-eek, whoo-eek” of the wood ducks leaving the water off the point of Goose Island. The words of Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things” float in your consciousness:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The Kishwaukee Gorge is one of the best swimming holes in the whole valley. You remember floating the current, bobbing in your life jacket, suspended in the waters, carefree and not all that younger. You choose to sit and watch today. An osprey glides overhead and lands across the river and calls, “chewk, chewk, chewk.” You think possibly he is telling the swimmers to get out of the river; he eats those fish they are swimming among.
Naked sycamores, towering cottonwoods, majestic eagles, muckets, sandshells, pimplebacks and mussels—all of those beautiful river critters that make this their home. How many generations have called it theirs, just as you and your daughter and granddaughter have? Water beads on your cheek, the sky is blue, a few clouds are forming.
You toss a rock into the flow, and ripples go in all directions. How far will they travel? You have made many ripples in your life. These include waves of education, those you have helped in so many ways and your family. You will never realize your impact. What ripples will those you have touched send out? Endless.
Just before the bridge at Atwood Park, you begin to worry that on this last float you will not see the great blue herons. Then, circling overhead almost on cue, the river dancers appear. They lightly drop out of the sky on the rocky bar. They watch intently as you float to the other side as to not scare them away. You raise your palm to them. They watch you float down the river. The setting sun casts long shadows. The air is beginning to chill, and it wakes you from the mystic spell of the heron’s gaze.
The take-out is now a new canoe landing. We bypass the mess and get out beyond the cement pad on the grass. The big cottonwood is gone, the stairs are not the same. Changes occur. It doesn’t matter—this is your last float anyway. You did what you could, more than most. You stare out at the river; it continues to flow, as will the lives of all of those you are leaving. You think it is all good, but wish maybe to ride the current just a little longer. But you say, “No.” There are new trails to travel into the unknown. Like always, you welcome the new adventure. You sit and breathe it all in and think…who said you can’t take it with you, because you know you will.
Don Miller is education director at Severson Dells Nature Center, 8786 Montague Road, Rockford. For more about Severson Dells, visit www.seversondells.com.
We’ve got a double header you won’t want to miss: World renown butterfly expert Robert Michael Pyle and a Severson Dells’ favorite, writer extrordinaire Scott Russel Sanders.
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