Impact
By Ann Miner, High Desert Branch
Word of my cousin’s death has reached my ears. The landscapes of our last visit are with me constantly. The aura has floated all the way here, to my home, to my realm. It will not go away.
The image of her smiling face leaps forward. She throws me a kiss as we wave goodbye. Two decades have passed since we last met. Our time has been rushed treasured. We could not know there would be no other.
Memories come flooding back, silent waves upon silent sand. We are babes on the blanket, crawling and giggling. We are in the rowboat, wearing our little life jackets to protect us against danger. Her short, brown curls tighten in the moist air.
Older now, we splash and swim on the lake, race to the tower, never sure what purpose of the tower is, why it is there.
We climb up the old wooden steps that rise over the fence our gateway to the spillway and more adventure. Here, water moccasins and turtles, rattlesnakes, and an abundance of bug s delight us, as we fearlessly drop our hooks in the water. Our
cane poles are long and sturdy, strong enough to hold a black, snapping turtle, or a snake, before the creature lets go and drops back into the safety of the dark water.
These memories and others wander through my heart as I go about my daily business.
If we knew the impact we have on others, if we knew how thoughts of us would permeate every moment of their days soon after we are gone, I wonder how we would change.
“Impact,” excerpted from Ann Miner’s I Lift My Eyes,
appeared in the July 2024 Inkslinger, newsletter of the High Desert Branch.