The Creek is Dry

The creek that runs through the cemetery near Joshua’s resting place is dried up from the summer heat.

Although, today, it wasn’t scorching the way August usually is in Arkansas. It has been unseasonably mild, like the world exhaled a little, just enough to let me breathe too.

I sat for a while and listened. There wasn’t much to hear, not in the usual sense. No running water, no birds calling out. Just stillness.

But in that stillness, everything else became louder. The soft buzz of mosquitoes, the hum of dragonflies’ wings as they hovered nearby, and the wind. It stirred gently high in the treetops and would occasionally reach down to brush across my shoulders like a gentle whisper. Maybe, just maybe, he’s in that wind.

The flag chains clinked against the metal posts. And the little cross necklace left on the bird feeder pole weeks ago, tapped rhythmically in the breeze, like it was keeping time with my heartbeat.

I even watched a few leaves fall, early, out of season. They weren’t just drifting; it felt like they were insisting on being seen. Each one floated down with intention, like a message I couldn’t quite translate but couldn’t ignore either.

And I wondered again, is he in the wind? Is he in the hush between the clinks of the chain? Is he in the breeze that stirs the leaves before they fall? Is he reaching out in ways too quiet to hear unless I’m really listening?

The creek is dry and quiet. But the air speaks louder in the water’s absence. Grief is like that…silent, then suddenly full of sound. Sometimes, it crashes into me like a wave. Sometimes, it just settles next to me on a bench beneath a tree. Sometimes, it waits for me by a dry creek bed. And sometimes it floats quietly to the ground, like August leaves, drawing my attention with its quiet, unexpected presence.